Fire In The Belly
by Xandiwasmahomei
Summary: Children are a natural part of life, but for some, they're just unexpected. Don't want to give too much away now...
1. Drowsiness

**Misplaced**

Author's Notes: This was going to be a drabble, but now, I think I want to put something else into it. Of course I own House, who doesn't if they are writing fanfics like this for nothing? However, I do own some of the characters that are new, like Chase's girlfriend and the new duckling. Nurse Brenda, however, IS a recurring character on House, so, yeah. This isn't graphic; however there will be some themes which can be uncomfortable for some.

Chapter 1: Drowsiness

"Good morning, kids. Say, daddy's run out of coffee. Last person to think of a cause for a blackening liaison on the patient's left thigh goes and grabs me some more." House said cheerily.

"Advanced infection in the blood?" Cameron hinted.

"Contact with large amounts of carbon monoxide?" Foreman stated in a stronger tone.

"Clean tox screen, and O2 stats are normal. What is this, rocket science? No, wait. Medicine, rocket science, rocket science, medicine…"

House then swivelled around on his cane to Chase's usual seat.

"No Chase? Did he chicken out and run off before I kicked his wombat ass or is he really that dumb?"

Neither, it seemed, as Chase walked pass the glass panel and headed towards the door.

Only, it seemed to be an altered Chase walking in the door. His deep, blue-green eyes were dry-looking. The skin on his face which usually glowed for no reason was dull and pale, odd for the lightly tanned male. Dark blonde hair, naturally free-falling and slightly wavy was now just sad and limp. What had caused this dramatic change would be unexplainable to the average thinking mind, but House was inventing all sorts of diagnoses.

"Sorry, bad night's sleep." Chase croaked. An untouched coffee mug was in his hand. Perfect.

"Yeah, we all have 'em. Why do you need the extra attention?" House retaliated, snatching the coffee and heading down the hall.

"You're caring about the physical condition of one of your employees? How very Oprah Winfrey of you." The voice of an intrigued friend called from behind House.

"Nope. Just giving away 500 grand cars for the hell of it." He shot back.

"Liaison patient showing any new symptoms?" Wilson inquired.

"Nope."

"No low-cut blouse on Cuddy today either."

"Aw, man. Next thing you know, I'll have the hooker go to Colorado."

They turned the corner that headed back to House's office. From a distance, they noted that Chase had moved to the couch. Cameron was sitting next to him, Foreman still at the table, but not too far away either.

"Cute. Never realised they loved their big brother that much." House remarked.

"Interesting, yes." Wilson commented.

Then, unexpectedly, the sound of clicking heels snuck up behind them.

"House!" Cuddy yelled.

"Cuddy!" House yelled back.

"Clinic needs you. Exam room 4."

"Oh, joy. The clinic never ceases to torture, does it?"

"It won't unless you get your ass in there right now!" Cuddy finished. However, she looked past the two men's shoulders, into the glass panels of the office. House's office.

"Why is Chase on the couch?"

House turned around. Sure enough, a few locks of hair and shoeless feet were sticking out from either end of the couch. Sitting before, sleeping now.

"House…is going to inspect the cause of Chase's…alignment, very soon, Cuddy." Wilson quickly stated, walking off back to his office.

This was aggravating. All he wanted to do was torture Chase, and now Wilson said he had to go and treat him! Argh, the irritation of it!

"You owe me big time, Jimmy." He muttered under his breath.


	2. Inspection

Chapter 2: Inspection

_This was a place he'd never been before. This was a long, straight road, going further and further into the distance. He could not see the point of why he was walking down this tree-lined path. It just seemed like he should continue down it until he reached something. What, he could not tell. When, he did not guess…_

--

House hobbled over to the snoozing Chase. In his sleep, his brow was furrowed in confusion, thought, whatever blondes dream of while asleep. He looked at him again, wondering whether to wake him up or not. Something on the table caught his attention. A note:

_Off to draw cultures and change the I.V. bag. Chase is feeling nauseous, threw up in the sink. Don't worry, Cameron cleaned it up. Back in 30 mins._

_E.F._

"Cameron cleaned the sink up. Thoughtful girl, eh?" House said to the sleeping Intensivist. What Foreman's note said seemed to be true; the sink area of the diagnostics lounge smelt of disinfectant.

Cuddy was probably installing a new homing device on him today; maybe he should get started on inspecting Chase. Plus, as he was sleeping, it'd be easier to examine him. And it could annoy the hell out of him later.

First, the simple one-over: Shoes were off, sign of comfort seeking or swollen feet. Loose belt, yet again, comfort or weight gain. The vomiting, Occam's razor would say that it was just an upset stomach. Probably just a normal case of food poisoning. Nothing much sleeping over, time to wake him up.

"Oh my _God!_ Chase, there's a crazed dog running through the ward, and wombat claws are needed to build a booby trap hole! Come on, get up!"

All he got in return was a grunt and a general stir. This one wouldn't go down without a fight.

"HEY!" House yelled while poking his cane into the blonde's leg. That worked a fair bit.

Chase half-opened his eyes and looked at House in a sleepy daze. "Why…are…you…fine." he said thickly, sitting upright.

"Your accent is a hell of a lot stronger when you're tired." House commented, "Almost cute."

"Yeah, and your cane really sets off your eyes." Chase replied sarcastically.

"Well, duh…were you feeling abdominal pain when you…"House trailed off as the wicked with walked in.

"Dr. House, I have a proposition. Seeing as you are _far _too busy to fill out evaluation forms-"

"Damn, I thought that the Secretary Fairy was onto that-"

"So, to _assist_ you with your work, I have for you two new employees. " Cuddy finished.

In walked the two new ducklings. One was a flat-chested, part-something woman who was wearing a slip-on dress and light green stockings. She was wearing a beady belt and had her curly, (chunked auburn) red hair in a bun, which was covered by a red plastic coil thing with a thick red hairpin holding it in place. House also spotted a little nose piercing in the shape of a pink rose on her right nostril.

The other duckling was wearing skinny black pants a knee-length, a lacy black skirt and a blue V-lined shirt. Her hair was white blonde and, to House's joy, may have had slightly bigger vintage than Cameron. This was only drawn attention to by the butterfly brooch on her cleavage.

The curly-haired girl was rather short and frail, like an old lady; the white blonde was tall (maybe taller than House, even without the heels) and hourglass-like. However, looking at her pale eyes, he thought she could be an albino.

"This is Dr. Meri Idnax," Cuddy said while gesturing to the smaller woman.

"She has a degree in cardiology, and this," she added while pointing at the albino "Is Dr. Elaine Racknell, an expert in gastrology. They will be under your supervision for the next eight months. By the end of that period, it will be your choice of whether you want to keep them or not."

"You're making this sound like an adoption program." He remarked sarcastically.

"Not my problem. Clinic in one hour or bust." Cuddy said, turning on her heel. Damn, Wilson was right; she'd cottoned on and worn a mildly baggy sweater. _"'It's cold', my ass."_ House thought.

The Head of Diagnostics looked at Idnax and Racknell. Racknell was staring at him, as if waiting for him to bite back. Idnax, however, was forcing a half-smile. This was going to be interesting.

"Good morning, Meri and Elaine. God, those names are far too perky for your personalities, I'll call you by your surnames. Get used to it; my other bitches did. Chase, go see what cool drugs Liaison Patient might be taking."

Chase obediently walked past the two and flashed a small smile, right before snapping back into the seedy-looking grimace.

"See? He responds to his surname, I expect the same from you. Now, my office, what's good about it? Um, over there's the whiteboard, that's where we write all our cool little hunches and whatever's screwing up our patient. Over to the north-east, we have our mini-kitchen. We're out of coffee at the moment, so don't get any ideas. Sitting arrangements? Sit anywhere, except the ceiling; I don't want any broken necks. Favourism order? Cameron's first, because she's the only one who uses coasters, then Chase, the blonde thingy that just walked out, because his ass can be grabbed easily. Foreman's last because he makes stains and will kick you ass if you grab his. Oh, and he didn't pass me my cane once, so, yeah. Got any questions?" House said as he turned around to the women again.

Racknell was the first to speak, "Dr. House. Pleased to be working for you, or being your bitch, as it may be. All I ask of you is that my surname doesn't come into contact with jokes about breasts. Oh, and albinism; yes, I am and albino, so what?"

Hmm, this one wanted to be seen as though tough to crack. _"Well, if that's the case for our chesty albino, then that's the way it'll go. Or not."_ He thought to himself again.

"Well, she made her opening statement. What's yours?" he turned to ask Idnax.

"Um, well, thanks for not calling me by my first name. Never liked it anyway. I just don't find the clinic very inspiring, I don't know if that'll be a problem or not." Idnax said shakily.

"_Remind me to send you as often as possible."_ House mused. Hang on, her accent was vaguely familiar.

"Are you, by any chance, Australian?" House asked.

"No, as a matter of fact, I'm Welsh-American. The yank vocal cords never rubbed off on me."

"Stiiiill, it sounds Adelaide-born…"

"Enough. She said she's Welsh, do we have to put up with this crap?" Racknell interrupted.

"Something tells me you're not going to be too happy, eh?"

"Bite me."

--

Author's Note/s: That's the end of chapter 2! Well, all I can say at the moment is that I hope my trusty reviewers are still that, trusty.


	3. Nausea

Author's Notes: El Chaptero Trio is here. NOW we get to the fun stuff, like…oh, hell, enjoy. Also, I'm happy because the cowboys (my NRL team) just beat the Rabbitohs last night! It's a GREAT thing because we've been having a big losing streak…and…and…I've run out of things to cite about. Oh dear.

Chapter 3: Nausea

A few minutes after the introduction to the world of House, Foreman and Cameron came back into the room, taken by surprise at the new arrivals.

"Who are you two?" Foreman asked the new ducklings suspiciously.

"New minions. This one is Dr. Meri Idnax, cardiologist; other one is Dr. Elaine _Rack_nell. She has a degree in gas." House uttered smarmily.

"No, I studied gastrology, the study of the digestive system." Racknell corrected.

"Yeah, what she said."

"Eric Foreman." Foreman said, holding out his hand to be shaken. Racknell took it, looking down to his eyes. She smiled at him, before letting go and allowing Idnax to shake. She had to look up, just a little, to catch Foreman's glance. However, she seemed frightened instead of welcoming.

"Allison Cameron." Cameron said, smiling her bedside manner smile at the two. Finally, it'd been ages since there'd been more than one girl on the team. Not since Lena Matthews had left after tying the knot with her long time lover. It'd been a long time alright, so it'd be nice to have some girls to talk to again, strange as they appeared to be.

"Oh, quit the being nice act and get to scratching each other's eyes out! You don't get Intruders for friends, they're meant to make controversy!" House interrupted, yet again.

"At least we don't swing out canes around for attention." Foreman said in retaliation.

"Where's Chase?" asked Cameron, trying to steer clear of a brawl again by being the voice of reason.

"Went off to go and test your blood infection theory." House said. Come to think of it, he had been taking much longer than necessary. Wouldn't want to let him have too much fun, better go and find him. Picking up his cane again, the sarcastic doctor walked out the door.

--

While walking down the corridor again, he tried to think of somewhere he might just find the secretive wombat. Janitor's closet? Nah, there were still heaps of nurses up at the front station. ICU? Chase could only have been there if he was really bored. Girls' bathroom? He wasn't that blonde. _"Never mind,"_ he thought. _"I'll just go and bug Wilson for a bit."_

Then the burn came back again. Vicodin Time. Leaning on the cane more than needed, he shuffled into the men's room. Normally, he wouldn't have gone to find some privacy to dry swallow, but relieving one's self was a good time waster.

House opened the door and went to take 20mg in front of the mirror, only to see a familiar orally fixated Intensivist rejecting what only appeared to be bile into the basin. Hmm, bile. Not the first time he's puked then, unless he's bulimic. Only, if it was bulimia, he'd be losing weight, not putting on five pounds in the past five weeks.

"Geez, Chase, wake up! Don't you _know _that those models are digitally enhanced? You're fine just the way you are! So, you've put on some weight around your hips, so what? You are amazing just the way…"

"Look, I don't need that carp from you. I've vomited this morning, It happens! A little illness will not stop me from doing my job. Why do you even care? It's not like I'm the first person in the world to chunder. Let's just get back to Diagnostics and work on the patient's blood. I. Am. Fine." Chase said with rising anger.

"OH-Kay then! Have you even got the…" House queried, just as Chase's blue-green eyes roll back into his head before hitting the cold floor.

Surprising. One man just shouted like a PMSing woman, but didn't slap or anything. Either it wasn't "PMS" or…House paused mentally as he felt for a radial pulse, which was getting faster and faster.

"Need some help in here? Brit with a rising BP!"

A/N: At least erdeanduncan won't bite anyone now (evidence that I DO read your lufferly reviews, and I DO enjoy getting them…)


	4. Tomato

A/N: Alright, I am ashamed of myself for that incredibly short last chapter! I tried to make it longer than it is, but nooo! Stupid inferior creativity…oh, well. This one shall be longer, and then I'm going to go to my writing corner and work on finishing off chapter 6, and write some stuff down before the computer comes back around and bites me on the arse. Random title, no? Read on to find out why I chose the Random Side…

P.S: Thanks to vanillafluffy for pointing out my stupid mistake. However, I shall not hit my head, not just yet… The babbling will stop now. Carry on.

Chapter 4: Tomato

The other four ducklings, growing suspicious of House and Chase's whereabouts, had just begun a search party of their own. While turning the corner with Racknell, he'd heard House calling out for help.

"_Great, what's he done this time?"_ Foreman wondered to himself.

"'Brit with a rising BP'…Oh My God, is that Chase?" Racknell asked to the now racing Foreman.

"Yeah, but don't call him that unless you can run fast!"

"Why!"

"Because he's Australian!"

"Oh, alright then!" Racknell called back.

Foreman pushed open the bathroom door to see House standing over his 'lapdog'. Raising his eyebrows, House answered the pending question.

"He was at a usual state of freakiness a minute ago, and now, this." He explained, pointing towards the unconscious Chase on the floor.

Med school hadn't been for nothing. Foreman went back towards the nurses station to call for help.

"Two of you, need a gurney in the men's room!" he called out before grabbing the attention of Cameron and Idnax.

Cameron and Idnax followed suit, soon being tagged by two identical-looking, light brown haired, tall, skinny nurses pulling a gurney behind them.

"Oh, God…" Cameron muttered under her breath.

"'Oh, God'. Get him onto the damn gurney!" House cried.

Obediently, Idnax and Racknell leant over Chase's torso and picked him up from there. Cameron reached for his legs and the three gracefully dumped him onto the gurney.

--

A few hours later, Chase had been admitted to the ICU. The clone-like nurses and the other ducklings had been spending their time trying to make sure that Chase wouldn't keel over just yet, not until they could find out what had caused the elevated BP and O2 stats.

House, however, was being evasive, as usual. He and Wilson had been having lunch in the Oncology lounge.

"Heard anything about him?" Wilson asked in an attempt to keep a conversation buoyant.

"Him? His Infernal Majesty? Not since love said no."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"You need some hot stuff baby this evening?"

"No…"

"Wanna be forever young?"

"No…"

"Well, tonight for the first time, just about half past ten…"

"HOUSE!" Wilson, and Cuddy, who had just come to the door yelled.

"I'm sorry they can't be..."

"You'd better do some fast talking about why you're slacking off again!"

House took a deep breath, then began talking three times faster than normal:

"Okay! Wilson, despite having some sort of stress problem, which we don't know the cause of, he's fine. Cuddy, I was in the clinic…for forty-five minutes-"

"Alright, then! Well, be aware that there are several blood tests that need to be done now." Cuddy interrupted while passing the most annoying doctor in the hospital a file.

"Wilson, if House comes in here again-"

"Cuddy, you've missed someone's blood that needs to be tested."

--

Walking down the hall, taking his time, popping Vicodin, House tried to explain to the last person that their blood test might come back positive with something. While taking the walk down to the lab, a new, female voice came up behind him.

"Excuse me, can I see my boyfriend now?" the voice demanded.

House turned around.

Yes, another new set of fun bags, but one would have to bend his neck downwards to look at her face-to-face. Her skin was dark, but not like Foreman's. Mexican, the senorita seemed to be. For someone glued to her wedges, swinging her black hair-highlighted with red- stare at you with dark brown eyes and not give a damn that her belly-button piercing was on full display from under her halter top, she was doing a damn good job at getting a man's attention. However, some men might not see stacked-on hips as such an attractive thing.

House stared at the girl, then at (sleeping) Chase's room, then at the girl again, and answered:

"You? With him? In there? Not until I get my money's worth."

"Ha ha ha. Dr. House, by any chance? Robert's told me about you. Described as a limping, pain-problem asshole."

"If that's House you're talking about, wrong doctor. I heard he was a lovely fellow…"

"Can I see my boyfriend now?"

"Whoa! Your boyfriend! Quiz first, boyfriend second. Question the first: Name?"

She sighed before answering, "Odessa Nombre. Most call me Pip, a nickname my 'friend' made up in high school because I had the physique of a tomato back then. When I got my belly pierced, it was my only visible 'pip'…"

"Lovely little story. Are you having sex with him?'

"It's not any of your business, but yeah, damn good sex too."

"How long has he been going out with you?"

"Five months."

"What's he like in the morning?"

"Before or after our sex?"

"Doesn't matter, answer the damn question."

"Well, he's been feeling sick and all. Really sick, and he looks like crap, but only in the morning? He really should be _losing_ some pounds from all of this, but he's been putting weight _on_, around the hips. And then, he's all fine and happy by the end of the day. Oh, and he's been hitting the sack earlier too. Is that all you need to know?"

"Yeah, thanks Pippito."

"Pip, whatever. _Now_ can I go in?"

"Yeah, go. Thank you for that information. Oh, and your skirt's tucked into you thong."

Pip gaped at him for a minute, but before she could reach for her hemline, someone was pulling the old 'Shock 'em and Swab 'em' trick.

"Thanks again. Your STD results'll be back tomorrow."

--

Finally, before Cuddy could catch him missing out on lab tests again, he'd made it down there. He could tell she was approaching, so he made an attempt to look busy. Only this time, he was.

"Hey, Cuddy, come and look at this."

Tap, tap, tap of heels echoed against the linoleum floor. She peered over at the latest blood test results in boredom.

"Congratulations. Your lesion patient is expecting."

"No, can't be."

"With those hormone levels? That's an enceinte woman."

"Refer to what I said last."

"House, look; why do you need a consult? That's a perfectly normal pregnancy…"

"Do you forget that Ms. Santal is fifty-three and has had a hysterectomy?"

"Well, sorry! Okay, so another one of your twenty-something patients is pregnant…"

"Did you know that chain you have your pet hamster of a diamond goes nicely with your blouse? Come to think of it, the blouse goes well with your bra, which goes well with your-"

"HOUSE!"

"Sorry, distractions."

"Why do I even _need _to suggest a differential diagnosis?"

"Have you even seen who the patient is?" House mentioned smugly, passing her the full test results. Her look changed from anger to disbelief.

"Oh my God…"

"Yeah, impressive, huh?"

"That's impossible, how could…"

"I know, just lemme go tell...and, maybe grab some coffee and Ativan, too." House said on the way out.

A/N: Woo, aren't I evil? Okay, it's starting to smell like burnt toast now, and I've dropped a pretty big clue into it now. However, maybe I'll pull a Desperate Housewives on you. Now THAT would be evil! Toodles.


	5. Buns

A/N: Yeah, well, there we have it. Someone's gone and knocked the wombat up. This chapter I'm going to use to explain it medically, because it's House, and it's not really going to make much sense if I say "Yeah, he screwed around, and Bang!" Tips on whose baby it is can be made in review form, and I'm curious to see who you think is the mother…err, father…whatever. Note: NOT a single joke about Cuddy's breasts in this!

Chapter 5: Buns

The second hobble past the room holding Chase that day. He did not consider the idea of having to visit someone he didn't really think himself that close to a brilliant idea. Especially with life-changing news.

The girl that had indirectly called him an asshole earlier that afternoon was sitting on the bed. They were talking, laughing a little; Chase was even explaining to her what some of the machines were recording. Whatever it was, they were going to have probably forgotten about it in a year's time. Small talk, never remembered in the long run.

Coming into the room with the stride that was underlined in his hobble, they stopped and stared at him.

Pip was biting her lip, deciding if she should have told her boyfriend that she'd been tested for STDs by the same doctor a couple of hours earlier. If it had come back positive for something, and if she'd given it to him…

"Is everything alright, Dr. House?" she blurted out.

"Yeah, for you, you're perfectly healthy."

She breathed out a sigh of relief. Thank God, at least she wasn't going to hospital any time soon.

"So, doctor. Find anything about why I passed out in the toilets?" Chase asked, rearranging himself on his pillows. He would have been comfortable, but the fact that this was a sterile _hospital_ bed just made him uneasy.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I did. But before I can be certain, have you got any other wombat-ish complaints?"

Pip obviously had no idea what he was talking about.

"Don't worry. Office joke. Absolutely nothing to do with Australia."

"Well, despite my stomach bothering me? Back's sore, and I had a headache this morning. Surprisingly, it's just suddenly some back." Chase said, giving him that glare of irritation, which made him look more frightened than angry.

House snickered a little, "That might explain it. The tests came back positive for pregnancy."

That shocked them. After their minute-and-a-half long pregnant pause (House was used to putting with these in his medical lifetime), Pip squeaked, no squealed in obvious surprise. _"Huh. Talk about delayed reaction…"_ he thought to himself.

Chase's bluey-greeny eyes, House had never decided what colour they actually were, appeared to be glistening more than usual. He'd turned to face her, and with the matching bitten lip, began to laugh. Was their fear behind it, though?

Either way, both seemed to be too wrapped up in the other at the moment. Girl hopped up closer onto the bed (perhaps with a bit more grace) and went up to embrace boy lover. Girl held boy for a minute longer, before either of them looked down at her midriff.

Having to sit through scenes like that annoyed House, except if they were in the form of _General Hospital_ or _The O.C._ It seemed like a good time to put them straight.

"Well, actually, the test came back negative…"

Pip stared at him again. "Huh? Wait, you just said…"

"I did. Your test for STDs which could be messing with your boyfriend came back negative, for anything. However…his test, for pregnancy, came back positive. Your bun's in-_his_- oven."

That shut them up. Pip stared at him in disbelief, as if waiting to be woken up from some dreadful nightmare. Chase frowned and looked at his employer, expecting to hear "Just kidding!" any second now.

"Is this some sort of crap joke about my sexuality again?" Chase wondered, beginning to look afraid.

"Oh, no no no no! God no. I think your blood's trying to tell us in less than eight months time, a baby's going to pop out. Pregnancy does all sorts of weird and wonderful things to a woman's body, or your body, as it seems. It's called HS, or Hippocampus Syndrome. I personally call it "Seahorse Sickness". Causes all sorts of crazy things to happen to a perfectly healthy man. Only detected when you get knocked up. However, if you're not pregnant, it could be diagnosed by monthly stomach pain. Naturally, you wouldn't have told us about that little set back, would you? Anyway, if you've been, erm, _exposed_ to enough female hormones, I pity your unlucky stars that a pouch with similar function to a uterus may from. Had any contact with a chick's abdomen lately? Well, if she was ovulating, that egg may have been passed onto you and your synthetic membrane for skin on your abdomen. Sperm did its thing, and, voila."

The lovebirds wanted to stare at something, anything, except Chase's stomach. It would probably be a while before either would accept that he was carrying their child.

"Naturally, I'm appalled at the fact that you've gotten pregnant, let alone had a girlfriend you didn't even tell me about. Go on, have a week off. I'll probably get over it by then. I'm also going to get an ultrasound booked for you with Wilson. Sort out your own maternity-slash-paternity leave."

"You know, that's probably the nicest thing you've even thought of doing for me." The wombat commented, his throat sounded clogged.

House felt irritated. Being called nice was not wanted from this visit, grovelling, wailing, tearing out of hair follicles, but not being called nice.

"Don't think you're off the hook then thanks to Wombat Junior. And absolutely no knitting in my office!"


	6. Movement, Part 1

A/N: Curious about why I'm doing this? Well, one of my House-addict friends said that "You'll get an A in Maths when Chase gets pregnant." Now, here I am, sitting, waiting, and wishing…'Nother long chapter here, for ya. This is the equivalent of two chapters for me. Continue please.

Chapter Six: Movement

A week later, the four other ducklings (minus their tamer) were sitting in odd spots around the diagnostics lounge. Foreman on the glass table, Racknell was sitting backwards on what was now "her chair". Cameron was atop a low bookshelf (as if she was minding Chase's territory) and Idnax wasn't sitting, but just leaning against the whiteboard.

"Andrea didn't look that bad when we saw her off." Foreman said in an attempt to break the silence. It bugged him, and small talk was always a good way of breaking it.

"Yeah and now here we are: All locked up and not a thing to diagnose." Racknell responded. Sure, it was a fairly catty remark, but that's the best they could get out of Racknell.

"Does House run off like this for no obvious reason all the time?" Idnax asked one of the two older ducklings. Of the two new ones, she'd proven to be friendlier, and curious about people.

"Either if the penny's dropped about something and he's the only one who heard it, or a hooker's gone to Cuddy's office." Foreman replied with a little smirk.

"Huh, like that happens often…" Racknell muttered. Ever since she got here, all she'd received from House was comments about going into the sun without a hat and having to watch as he held a folder jokingly in front of her chest.

"Never mind, Chase is coming back today." Cameron said, always eager to show her optimistic side.

"Aw, not long now, is it Cameron? Don't worry; stress leave will have done him good. And I also found out why his BP went so high that other day." House said, walking in while pretending to read someone's file.

"Is he gonna be alright?"

"Well, like I said: Stress leave will have helped a lot. Shame is he's gone…"

Idnax looked shocked, and pushed down her purple glasses, similar the way a secretary would do if someone asked her where the bath room was. "Do you mean that he…left?"

"No, but he's definitely in trouble…" House said in mock calm. Teasing them for a while like this was going to be fun.

"So you caught him with a nurse?" Foreman asked suspiciously, but hiding back another smirk.

"No, didn't catch him this time, but he did drink from the well behind our backs."

"He caught some sort of water-born virus?" Cameron asked, looking as if she was prepared to start clucking all over him when Chase walked in the door again.

"Oh, come on! Stop being so broad-minded! Chase is carrying!"

"-something contagious!"

Fine, they were being just plain stupid now. "Chase has Hippocampus Syndrome. His girlfriend's gotten him," he paused for a moment, before switching his vocal cords to a bad Australian accent. "'up the duff.'"

He never saw the confusion or shock one their faces as he walked to his desk to pick up his favourite oversized tennis ball. While beginning to hit it against the wall, House waited for somebody to speak.

"How can we be sure that this isn't some sort of joke?" Cameron asked suspiciously.

"Well, Wilson's seeing him now, checking it all out. Maybe if you're nice, we can see a print out, but that'll require a hell of a lot of carrots, and seeing it's for two…"

"What is Hippocampus Syndrome, and what the hell is being 'up the duff'!" Racknell interrupted, seriously confused.

House looked at her as if she was crazy. "Oh, really, come on. You've been working with him for _how_ long!"

"House, the eight days we've been here we've only seen Chase twice, and now he's 'up the du-"

"Pregnant, you moron."

"…Oh." She said, finally sounding defeated for the first time in eight days.

"Um, what is Hippocampus Syndrome anyway?" Foreman asked, interested.

House explained to them all again how HS Looking up at House after musing for a moment, the short, curly-haired brunette spoke up.

"House, wait a minute; Remember when we took Chase to the ICU? Racknell and I had to lean over him to pick him up. I leant over him, touched his belly-"

"And I'm pretty sue I did too." Racknell added.

"-so, couldn't that make one of us the mother?"

House felt his eyebrows knit together in confusion. Sure, it'd be fun to see the fluff-headed duckling be ruffled up, but that would result in soap opera drama, and while General Hospital was fun, it'd be maddening to have it at work.

"Good point, but both of you have a very low chance of actually being the mother…father…yeah. Then again, you could probably pick it up from a unisex toilet, if you lean over it enough. I mean, who doesn't lean over a toilet when they're sick?" House stated, unaware if he was talking to himself. He headed towards the door.

"Where are you going now?" Cameron sighed exasperatedly.

"To find mother boy, and to work out if we have a B&B on our hands."

"'B&B'?" Foreman queried.

"The Bold and the Beautiful. Worst soap opera ever, and I do NOT want it turning up to work."


	7. Movement, Part 2

A/N: There you are. I thought this chapter was way too long for my likings, and I don't want to make this chapter 7. No, that'd screw up my perfectly perfect plans! So, Chapter 6: Movement, Part 2.

--

"This is crazy. I've probably been eating my girlfriend's terribly cooked macaroni chicken, and now it's coming back to haunt me in hallucination style…" Chase babbled as Wilson applied the cold gel to his taught stomach…

"_HS, Hippocampus Syndrome…I think our resident wombat may be pregnant." House had told him._

"_You're kidding."_

"_No way, Jose. Do this ultrasound for me. Fifty bucks he is."_

"_Fine…I'll say it's an abnormal tumour if anybody walks in."_

…What House had asked him to look for was unbelievable, at first. Pregnancy would explain why Chase had snapped at him the other day. His first wife, Katie, had overreacted like that too when he'd bumped into her in the hallway seven years ago. So as not to have his blood pressure going through the roof again, Wilson wisely decided to turn the screen away from him.

Oh, God forbid. House, once again begging to differ with differential diagnoses, was right. The tiny thing was squirming around, minding its own business inside of its father, as if it was listening to a dance song. A familiar annoying tune came into his head, something House was listening to on his iPod the other day at full blast as he imagined it in his mind.

"_Now's a good time to show him the monitor, James!"_ a wafery little voice of reason came from inside Wilson's mind. Those voices, as House would put it, sucked. Mentally gathering himself, Wilson turned to Chase, who seemed to be mouthing an unfamiliar prayer, his eyes closed to the world.

"Ch-Robert, do you want to see the screen now?"

Breaking out of the prayer, Chase suddenly remembered where he was. Feeling scared at what was going to be on the screen, he nodded.

What followed was a large attempt not to gape from the wombat, and an even larger one from Wilson to not blurt out the bet he'd made with House. However, this also marked the first time the Intensivist had looked down at his stomach, or even dared to will his hand into placing it near the place where offspring was forming. Yes, there was lip-biting and obvious embarrassment to do so, but it was a start.

"Can you feel that?" Wilson questioned curiously.

"Not really. Cripes, he…er, she is moving a lot, eh?" Chase answered, focusing on the monitor.

"Perfectly normal. You look to be about, fourteen weeks along." Wilson explained, noticing an eyebrow being raised at how far along he was without realising it. "He or she will be due around mid November."

"Wait a minute…maybe, just a flutter, I guess." Chase mentioned, hoping he didn't look that shocked.

Not worry, his boss had just walked in on them. Again, he looked like he had something to say.

"'Morn, Wilson. Got any shots of Wombat Junior yet?" House asked in a sarcastic, chirpy sort of way. He then proceeded to answer his own question by walking over and glancing at the monitor, before giving a three second look, a tiny wave of mockery before turning around to his eldest duckling again.

"I'm still upset about you getting knocked up. Well, I guess it's my fault, never went through with you about that time of the month. Relax, I'll support you. Only, are you sure Pip's the mother?"

Chase scrunched up his face in annoyance. "I'm not cheating on her."

"I never said you were, but I'm not gonna say you aren't. However, Cameron cry on you shoulder lately? Get stomped on by Cuddy, spanked by Annette…

"If you're asking me who I've made bodily contact with, I've hugged Cameron when she was having a bad day. Bumped into Cuddy in the hall around that time, and I swear there's these two nurses that are trying to have it off with me. Oh, and one chick down at a bar, but it wasn't a one night stand. I haven't had one since-"

He trailed off there. House knew he was going to say "Cameron". Slight irritated by Chase's honesty, he went on.

"Idnax pointed out that it's not necessarily Pip's baby. I just wanted to know who I can poke needles in. Cuddy's butt will be fun; could it be your S&M friend by any chance?"

"Haven't seen Annette since Harvey. I'm not into tor-"

"Whatever you say, Wombat! Give me your paw, need a basis, just like any third grade science project." He retaliated with. Quickly poking the wrist with the needle, and a slight wince from the prickee, the pricker quickly pulled it out again.

"It's not likely Cuddy, you've only run into her once-"

"Who gives! I wanna poke Cuddy's butt!"

"-_and_ it's _very_ unlikely to be Idnax or Racknell, they've only been here a week.The nurses, well, that's their own fault. The girl at the bar, do you still have contact with her by any chance? Cameron I think's the one we should be worried about." Wilson pointed out reassuringly, beginning to shut the ultrasound down. He hoped, for Chase's sake that it was his girlfriend's baby. Pregnancy was never a good time to be stressed for anybody, and if Pip wasn't the mother, it'd be putting the baby, and Chase, at a high risk alert.

"Perfectly healthy, no signs of foetal distress. You're okay too, despite having slightly abnormal blood pressure. Just relax and take care of both of yourselves." Wilson said, smiling and passing Chase a print-out.

With a shy smile and still slightly blushing, he left clinic room in a hurry, before taking a glimpse of his child, before stuffing the evidence in his lab coat pocket and heading back to diagnostics.

House then looked at the syringe again, then to Wilson, who was picking up his notebook and pen.

"He's _not_ 'perfectly healthy", wise guy. Did you notice how much you were contradicting yourself back there? He's stressed and now he _knows_ Joey's mother is questionable!"

"Is it illegal to comfort your expectant duckling?" Wilson asked hotly. He could see this would result in a typical slagging match a mile away.

"Yeah! Why couldn't you tell him more than the partial truth? For someone that far along, they could have been feeling a lot more movement than what was described. Either the cub's unusually small, or that foetus isn't growing correctly-"

"Chase, as we know is a very secretive person. He could have been feeling little bits of movement for weeks and not told anyone."

"That's not an excuse. The fact, for fourteen weeks, Chase has been an alternate incubator, and not one little wombatey instinct has told him that he could have HS!"

"House, nobody's even heard of HS. As far as I know, you could have just made it up to make it some sort of code to stop Cuddy's evil flying monkeys from getting in."

"Wilson, we ARE Cuddy's evil flying monkeys. Just rebellious ones."

"And you're calling the baby Joey?"

"Sure, why not? Give an Australian foetus an Australian animal's baby name, especially if it's our own live wombat cub who's expecting it."

"My point is, you're sounding like you care." Wilson retorted with finally. House couldn't win now, not without sounding like the mother Chase never really had.

With a snort and mumbling something similar to "I'm going to get some blood of Cameron," he stalked out of the room.

A/N: Hoorah, I'm done with both parts of chapter 6! And now I'm up to "Safe" in Australia. All In, here we come!


	8. Trust

Chapter 7: Trust

Heading back into the diagnostics lounge, Chase knew it was going to be difficult. Obviously, it wasn't the only wasn't the only upcoming challenge he had to face: Pip's insecurity, and never actually talking to him about it. His insecurity, wondering how long to stay at work when he started to show, House's taunts, awkward moments with his colleagues. The thoughts of nurses smothering him, finding out and telling anybody who'd listen, startling physical changes, becoming a parent AND not even knowing if it was Pip's baby, he wondered if he should save the ER any hassle and have the paddles used now.

The main problem, currently, was walking through that glass door. If House hadn't told them already, they were going to begin to ask questions about the weight he'd been gaining, suddenly feeling hungry all the time, whatever happened to him. But having to walk in that door was going to be tough. Convincing himself that it was beginning to look odd just standing there in the hall, Chase started to let his feet move again, and enter the room.

The other ducklings had been listening to a quirky anecdote from Idnax. Nobody but her really remembered what it had been about now; only it had involved her childhood in Wales, an apple tree and somebody thinking it was the end of the world. It was fair that they couldn't remember it much about it; their eldest colleague had come back into the office after eight days away from work. Not only that, all were still freaking out privately about having a pregnant work mate coming back.

So when Chase entered the room again, the other ducklings were thinking of a million different questions to ask, while he thought of a million different answers to reply with. Idnax asked the most obvious one first.

"Well, how's our wombat? Er, more correctly, how are both our wombats?" she asked, before deciding that she shouldn't have opened her mouth and clamped it shut again.

He laughed warmly at the question. Thank God it wasn't about Pip.

"I'm feeling better than last time you saw me. I stopped vomiting a couple of days ago, and I'm not having any more headaches either."

"May we ask how far along you are? Cuddy called in a minute ago; she doesn't want too many people finding out about this." Foreman mentioned.

Chase laughed again, "According to Wilson, I'm around fourteen weeks. Baby's due some time in the middle of November."

"This must be thrilling for you. Is Pip alright at the moment?" Cameron asked politely as possible.

Shrugging, Chase went to sit down in his usual seat. "Ah, well. I'm not as ecstatically joyful as one of your average clinic patients, but we are pretty happy, if not freaked out still, at what's happened."

"You'll regret that, bud. In a few months we'll be puttin' up with back pain, piles, having cravings of Jell-O and anchovy pies…" Racknell stopped in her tracks when she saw the look on Chase's scared face. She knew by that look that she had gone too far, again.

"Oops. Sorry, my mom got pregnant when I was fourteen. Dad had a _lot_ of fun out of a daughter with PMS and a wife with a baby in the works." She explained, before shutting up too.

"Well, as long as we don't have to eat fish and relish sandwiches with you, I'm gonna be fine with this." Foreman said.

Smiling and nodding in recognition, Chase tried to see if there was anything to do. Caseless once again, everyone was wondering when nobody had thought of bringing something to do. However, even after a few minutes silence, Idnax pointed out something to comment about:

"Chase, you skin's looking as peachy as you are!"

He frowned in confusion, "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well, since last time I saw you, I swear your face is a whole lot more…radiant."

The others smirked and giggled, while Chase was busy turning a bright pink. Foreman looked at him, chuckling. "She's right, Chase. You're glowing like a lantern."

"Good news for you Racknell; this probably means Chase's endorphins are kicking in. We won't hear any complaints for a while." Cameron said, smiling.

"Even better news, we have a new case!" someone oh-so-familiar to them bellowed.

"Oh, bring it on." Racknell sarcastically replied.

House began to rattle off the details like a news reporter, "Two-year-old female is having unexplained foot twitches, immobility in her left hand and not talking. That's the weird part: Since when do two-year-olds shut up?"

"Neurological problem for sure. Got any ideas Foreman?" Idnax quietly mused, while turning her head to the black doctor.

"I say she's got something wrong with the right side of her brain. We'll need a CT scan to be sure about it."

"Right then! If it is her brain shutting down, we're definitely going to need a CT scan. However, if it's just muscles screwing up, we'll need an MRI too. Patient history would be good too. So, I suggest to you, this: Foreman, you scare two-year-olds away far too much, so do the CT scan with Idnax. Racknell, if you can see a keyboard below your chest, then do the MRI with Cameron, but go and draw cultures for anything liquidly possible to test."

All the ducklings with jobs got up from where they were sitting and headed their various ways. House hobbled over to his desk, and then when he sat down to begin playing Minesweeper; he noticed the one duckling he'd forgotten about. Chase was sitting quietly at the glass table, fiddling with the button of his shirt closet to his belly button.

"Aw, don't take rejection so seriously. I only did that because you're wearing that shirt."

The wombat looked up from the other side of the table. "What's that got to do with not having anything to do?"

"Well, let's start with the shirt. Terrible colour to go with that tie, but it's got really nice buttons. Fiddling with the sixth button from the bottom means you find that the most fascinating one or you're more concerned about what's underneath the shirt, or more correctly, your navel. Should you continue to fiddle with that button, you might screw up the MRI, patient history, or another angiogram. Wait a minute, there's something you could do!"

"And that would be…?"

"Three hours left of my clinic duty. Scram."

--

Nobody had really said what bar they'd end up at after work, but they'd all just wound up at Pop.Cul. One of the trendier bars in the area. The kind that had pink, purple and orange lights, square seats, and a variety of cocktails that would have appealed even to sixty-year-olds, naturally who found the whole venue a disgrace to Princeton.

The ducklings had come to the place because the two-year-old girl's case was proving more difficult than just brain damage. Also because some interns in the hall had been cheeky to Cameron and Racknell about their "squareness" and not daring to go even near a bar like where they were now.

"Dear Gregory House. I loathe your stinking' guts for knowing that a two-year-old was going to throw up on me today!" Idnax cried, obviously tipsy while giving her little speech.

Foreman chuckled at her. Now he understood why she got uneasy when they'd gone through tox screens together. Even now, she was giving him distorted winks from her place between Racknell and Pip, who had come along to everyone's insistence that they meet the supposed mother-to-be.

"Well, TGIF indeed." Racknell smiled. She wasn't as bad as Idnax was, but she definitely was some form of drunk too. "Chase, it's not gonna kill you if you have one sip of that beer."

"Yeah, come on! Not even Cameron's being that evasive with us, and she's driving us home. Come on, are we really that boring for you?"

Looking over at her, then at the untouched bottle which he had ordered, Chase bit his lip. Alcohol had never really been that inviting, not after seeing somebody die from it.

"No, I'm fine. And I _am_ having fun." He said defensively.

"Hey, hey. Look, Robbie; the baby's not gonna be pleased if daddy's in a fluster." Pip cooed, leaning her head on his shoulder in a protective way. Like the other tipsy two, Pip was on the verge of it, as the two empty vodka shots on the table indicated. She didn't seem to care now as she pulled her arm around his waist, giggling at nothing particular.

"Um, guys? I'm a little tired, and Pip's looking a lot tipsy. I think we're going home." Chase said, helping Pip to her feet and taking her car's keys.

"Aw, wombat! Oh, fine. Foreman, you're takin' me home, wether you like it or not." Idnax whined.

"Sorry, Id, but you've got to go home now." Foreman said while helping the drunken Welsh to her feet as well.

Racknell looked over at Cameron. " Well, I'm not being asked to be swept off my feet, but can you drive?"

"Sure." Cameron said, as the two walked away.

And just as quickly as they had gathered, the group quickly parted as well.

A/N: Gah, this seems like such a filler chapter now! Ah, well. Romantic fluff at twelve o'clock next chapter. Oh, and I like them reviews. They are _nice_ reviews. 


	9. Designation

A/N: Oh, and I'm going back to school now, so the chapters (I still hope) will be pretty regular in their coming. If not, that's the main reason. Cue the jaws music; lights are going off, walls are coming down…beware…The Fluff Chapter!

Chapter 8: Designation

"Oh, come on! I had just two drinks, Robbie!" Pip drunkenly pleaded. "Oh, fine; three vodka shots, now just one round in bed!"

"No. Bed or you'll be more hopeless than you usually are after you drink all of tomorrow too." Chase said, taking her by the right wrist to their bed.

"Robbie! At least lemme do this…" she slurred while forcing her lips against his, pulling her skirt down as they kissed their way across the room to the sleeping grounds. The moment ceased as she slipped on her heel, knocking them both onto the sheets.

"See? Now you've got the ability to do that." He cried while trying to slide out from underneath her. Not that he was worried about the baby too much, but more the fact that she was pressing down on his chest and it was beginning to hurt.

"God, get off. I can't breathe!"

"Oh, so now that I'm drunk, you can admit I'm fat!" she laughed hysterically. "Pot calling the kettle black: you've been packing on poundage lately, and I can't _inhale _satay rice like you've been lately." With that comment, she smacked him lightly on the hip.

"I'm pregnant, what do you expect?"

Pip sighed, and flopped down beside him. "Huh, you're right. I guess I'm just gonna miss my athletic Australian boyfriend, and make some room for my big, baby-bellied boy…"she said, suddenly becoming interested in how many buttons on his shirt she could clumsily undo.

"_Alright, this calls for drastic action." _Chase thought, aiming for the most ticklish point on his girlfriend: the armpits. She shrieked and yelped like a hyena, falling back on the bed in defeat, for now.

"That. Was uncalled for!" she wailed. "You evil little-"

"Quiet. The neighbours hate us already; we don't want to encourage 'em."

"Fine, fine, just no more tickling me, okay?" she begged, while running her hand down his torso.

"It could be the vodka thinking, but I-slash-it thinks you're starting to show."

"Pregnancy doesn't show at three months!" Chase defensively sniffed.

"Some unfortunate mothers do." She smirked; resting her head on the pillows near his shoulder. "Besides, I think it's cute. You're built all the way along, and then, pop! There's this little bump, right here." Pip pointed around his navel.

"You _are drunk_. We are going to sleep before we wake the whole floor up." Chase said, falling back onto the pillows and allowing Pip to kiss him on the cheek before she snuggled up to him.

Sounding sleepier than she'd been before, Pip knew that she could not win, might as well surrender. "Alright, no sex tonight I guess. I'll go to sleep so our baby's not kept up All Night Long."

Chase smiled and ran his fingers through her hair as her eyes slowly closed. Not being the intoxicated one, he decided to have a double take on what they'd "discussed". Pip wasn't a complete idiot when drunk, more like she loosened up and spoke her mind inadvertedly.

Our baby. _Our_ baby. The idea of it seemed uncertain; House hadn't even got a blood sample off her. _"He's probably going to test Cameron, and anybody else who I told him about. Pip would go crazy if anybody told her that what she thought rightfully wasn't hers."_ He thought.

Yes, that was about right, like now as she unconsciously stroked his stomach. Sweet, but very, very spoilt as a girl. Highly protective of anything she was given, or came to her…

"_Hey, did it hurt?" the curvy girl at the bar simpered_

"_Sorry?" Chase asked as he felt her blonde friend come up behind him. They were onto something alright._

"_When you fell out of heaven, Angel!" Pip, five and a half months ago laughed. He knew which of the two he preferred._

Huh, that's how they'd wound up in the same bed after New Year's Eve. Maybe alcohol had fuelled this whole relationship with her…

No. They were happy. They had moved into his apartment, went out on the weekends if they hadn't been out at a bar (only Pip would do the drinking usually), knew each other like they'd been together since high school, and most importantly, he hoped, _loved_ each other. Now, due to some bizarre hormone disorder, were expecting a baby.

Yes, _their_ baby.

A/N:  Oooh, that's not too bad for fluff. Now, the big surprise: Is it REALLY Pip's Joey? Last chance to make your bets on who the mother is! Tips can be put on:

Pip

Idnax

Racknell

Nurse #1

Nurse #2

Cameron

Cuddy

Random blonde chick at the bar

Got any ideas? C'mon, I'm curious…


	10. News

A/N: Hmm, last chapter wasn't as bad as I thought. This has definitely gone to the Crack Side…Sped things up a bit; this hopefully will not go as long as the Da Vinci code. Big things that happen? The girls hear nasty things about 'em, Racknell gets into a spot of Board Trouble, and the all-pending mother is revealed.

Chapter 9: News

"Damn, sometimes, I wish I could turn my damn pager off." Racknell said, flopping down next to Foreman and Cameron, across from Idnax. She observed their respective trays: Tuna sandwich for Foreman, potato bake for Cameron, and mi-so soup for Idnax.

"Yuck, how can you eat that?"

"Quite easily, especially when I'm knackered." Idnax replied smarmily.

"So, here we are: no cases for nine days!"

"Actually, the record is fifteen days. " Foreman mentioned, chuckling at the memory. Fifteen days after solving a simple case of malnourishment.

"'Course it is. You know how far away you all were from cracking?" House said from a few feet away, making a beeline for the seat next to the smallest doctor. Each duckling was curious at why he was rushing, their boss would normally dawdle along when there wasn't anything serious on his mind. Foreman got the plan first.

Walking steadily behind House was a now five-month pregnant Chase. The wombat didn't look too abnormal compared to five months ago, maybe heavier around the hips and front, but it just gave the appearance of someone who'd been bingeing on junk food for a week.

House had won his own race. Before Chase had made it to the last seat at the table, he'd put his leg and cane up onto it in protection.

"Oops, sorry, too slow! Next table for you, mate."

Chase silently moaned at the statement, "My feet are killing me, I'm hungry, and I saw you take your Vicodin ten minutes ago. Get off that chair."

"No way, you can't sit with us. You've worn scrubs three times this week, and it's only Tuesday. We can't be seen with you."

"I've had to do some surgeries, now can I sit down and eat?"

"Euw, like no!" House whined, pretending to flip long hair over his shoulder, "That green colour looks ugly on you, and if you increased your RDI to one squillion calories a day, the stables are down a floor."

Now a slight glisten was in his eyes, "God's sake, I haven't slept decently for a month, walking hurts and if you REALLY need to know, scrubs are the only thing that fit now."

"Oh, so now you're in pod, the train of thought hits you that your clothes never really fit you in the first place?"

The bang of the tray on the table made everyone flinch and cause the ducklings to pay full attention to this scrapping match. "Oh, so now that I've grown bigger, the voices tell you its okay to tease me about it?"

"They may not be real, but they've got good ideas."

"…Oh…" Chase muttered, turning on his heels and leaving the cafeteria and the tray of uneaten food behind him.

House turned back to the ducklings, rolling his eyes and tucking into his Rueben sandwich. All was silent, until a murmur from Idnax tainted with fury.

"You bastard."

"Huh?" House drawled in an irritating manner.

"How can you be so bloody awful to him? He came to join us, and you deny him a seat and pick at the one thing he's worrying about-"

"Come on, all the cool kids are doing it!"

"-AND you know perfectly well that pregnancy causes hyper emotions!"

"I never realised you cared that much."

"I care about the fact that because you're miserable, you have to make others around you miserable. Son of a…"

"No swearing, it makes your face look wrinkly…"

"He has a baby inside him!" she shrieked and slammed her fist on the table as she shot up out of her chair. Three surrounding tables stared at her like she'd asked for a bottle of plant fertilizer at the pharmacy desk.

"Uh…lovely day, hey?" she said sheepishly, giving House one last dirty look and stalking out of the cafeteria too.

Cameron sighed, and finished playing with her leftovers," I'm going to talk to Meri."

"_Good, pull the leek out of her ass for me, then."_ House thought to himself.

"I'm going to follow Cameron; make sure she doesn't get lost in the kids oncology ward." Racknell smirked, picking up her pager and following said doctor.

"_Great thinking; there could be a whole bunch up there."_

"I'm going find and talk to Chase, or at least try to." Foreman said, collecting a couple of sandwiches off his tray.

"_Yeah, you go tell him that Heidi Klum's not a good role model."_

Now House was the only one left, and he decided to tell no one in particular "I'm going to eat my lunch."

--

"Meri, Chase has copped worse from House. Poking fun at weight gain is not the worst Foreman and I have seen." Cameron said to Idnax, power-walking a few steps in front of them.

"Yeah, ignores it, rolls his eyes, he even laughs at it, for God's sake!" Idnax snapped back.

"Id, don't worry about it. Chase'll be fine, plus that Joey can practice kick-boxing while they have the chance!" Racknell said, smiling at her own silly joke. Quickly after this though, she stopped in her tracks and held a finger up to her lips.

"What are we listening for?" Cameron asked quietly.

Racknell answered the question by pointing to a door that said "NURSE'S LOUNGE" on the plaque.

"I heard 'Cameron', 'House' and 'pathetic'. I think this is worth eavesdropping on." She whispered, sneaking back to the door, beckoning for the other two.

"…And the Irish one, so fastidious with her colleagues, eh?" one giggly Nurse, Martine squealed.

"I'm. Welsh." Idnax muttered.

"Yeah, but have you seen Dr. Chase lately? I saw him outside pathology yesterday eating a piece of cake. It was so gross, it was like this," another familiar nurse's voice commented. This one, Tai, then mimed a wild animal ripping into a meaty bone.

"Too true, no wonder he's getting fat." An older voice moaned, belonging to Nurse Deborah.

"It was kind of cute a month ago, but now it's just like Santa's paid a visit or two." Nurse Martine put forward.

"And the way his female co-workers are crawling over him, it's sad. Blind Freddy could see that he's lost the cute thing." Nurse Tai nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, except the blonde Snow White…it's like she's devoid of emotion, or compassion."

"Not like Dr. Cameron, so naïve…" a new nurse, Constance put in.

It was shocking; none of them had any idea that the nurses gossiped liked that. Gutted was not the word that could describe how each felt; more like being slashed open with chainsaws and being dried out for days. Cameron and Idnax looked ready to hyperventilate.

"…God, what happened to nurses being nice?" Idnax said in a small voice. "I had no idea you got that sort of thing Racknell…Racknell!"

No reply came. All they saw that the spiteful door had been flung open and a disgusting squelching sound came from Racknell's closed palm.

"You bitch!" Nurse Tai and Deborah cried in unison, looking at their fellow social butterfly crushed on the wheel, or at least her nose was.

"Next time I hear crap like that, it's her jaw!"

Cameron and Idnax raced in too late: Tai had jumped on top of Racknell; the sound of her heel snapping and hands flying around in frenzy were accompanied by squeaks and squeals of spectating nurses.

"Dr. Elaine Racknell, please report to Dr. Cuddy's office right now." The PA system announced.

--

Once again, the team were gathered in Diagnostics. The men were listening intently (Foreman had cajoled Chase into a good mood with the offer of chocolate) at Cameron and Idnax's story.

"So, Racknell got in a fight. Did I miss any good use of Jell-O?" House asked from his devoid universe of Game-Boy playing.

"She heard some bitchy stuff about us, and flipped out." Cameron explained.

Speaking of the devil, Racknell walked into the conference room with an ice pack over her cheek.

"Remind me that nurses never have, and never will cut their fingernails." She said, lifting it up to show four nasty scratches on her face.

"Wow, nice battle wounds, Xena." House gaped in fake shock.

"Shut up. They sting."

"Well, I have some mail for y'all, so heads up!' he smirked before sending a pile of random letters flying. They all began to scurry through the pile for letters addressed to them. Chase was the first to find one of interest.

"_Oh, God. Here it comes…"_

That letter had been opened with great care, read with great care, disbelieved in great shock.

"Oh…" Chase said, clutching his stomach, very frightened.

"What's the matter?" House snapped.

"Pip's not the mother, Meri is."

A/N: Oh, dear. Aren't they all in a fix? Don't despair, CamChase fans, there will be that sort of stuff…son.


	11. Sorrow

Chapter 10: Sorrow

No one could speak; it was all still too shocking. Pip was infatuated with "her" unborn child; House could tell by the shoes that she had worn that first time in front of him that she was spoilt and hated things to be taken away from her.

However, he was curious about the fact that Chase was too far along for it to be Idnax's kid, judging by the time they'd known each other. It would still be an embryo even now, and if Chase had been expecting when Idnax arrived, that meant that…

"How long have you guys known each other?"

Both stared back at him, knowing that if they denied anything now, House would give them the "Everybody Lies" lecture. Chase started to explain:

"We met in our last two years of uni back in Australia-"

"Idnax, you moved! Was St. George really that pretentious?" House interrupted.

"Yes, Australia proved to be worth more interest than Wales, shocking, no?" Idnax retorted "Let him tell the damn story."

"Meri and I were probably the only two not drinking stupidly, smoking, snorting, injecting anything stupid-"

"Partaking in orgies?"

"_No_!"

"Sorry! But daisy chaining was really taking off in the nineties, and high school students and uni kids thought it was all the rage-"

"God, NO! I'm still, uh…intact…down there…" Idnax babbled nervously. She could tell that at the rate this was going, today was going to be a long day.

"_Whoa, more blackmail! I never would have thought the cowardly dragon was another one of Chase's fan girls, let alone a virgin…" _House thought to himself.

The other three were staring to look very uncomfortable and torn in the middle. "Excuse me? I don't think you were involved in any of this, you can go back to class." He shooed them away before turning back to the other two ducklings that now had looks on their faces like naughty school children. Maybe metaphors are more powerful than we think.

"Good, now we're alone, care to discuss what happened five months ago?"

Idnax was now biting her lip, and it was bleeding a little. Chase looked ready to faint.

"I'd just arrived at Princeton, no idea whatsoever that Robert was going to be here too. Went out to a bar the same night, unaware that we about to walk back into each other's lives…"

House nodded, and swallowed two of his Vicodin. _"So, bumping into each other gave him a bump?"_

"No, you're only telling me half of it. One two-second knock into each other can't knock someone with HS up so easily. Friendly hug?"

Once more, the irritating silence.

"Yes. And a…peck, is that the word?"

"Oh, er. You _are_ in a fix."

--

A month later, Idnax was walking quickly down the hall to catch up with Cameron. She was going to be paying Chase and Pip a visit at their flat, and Idnax wanted to give him something useful.

"Cameron, wait!"

"Yes, Meri?"

"Uh, I'm kinda busy tonight, House has kept me back to help with _something_, and seeing you're going to see Robert, could you take this to him?" she asked shyly, passing a small bundle to her. It was sort of squashy; Cameron guessed it was clothes or a blanket. Nevermind, it wasn't her present.

"Tell him that I care for him and Joey, no matter what happens to him and Odessa."

"Odessa?"

"Pip, y'know, his, girlfriend…"

--

It had been one of the hottest days in August, and now the night air had become suddenly cold.

"Whew, they'd better be making something hot." She muttered to herself as she trudged along to the door.

The bellman looked at her with refined disgust. "Are visiting any of our current residents?"

"Ah, yeah. Robert Chase or Odessa…Odessa…"

"You mean Mr. Chase and his partner Miss Nombre?'

"Yeah, I'm seeing them for dinner." Cameron nodded in confirmation. Snotty people, like this bellman made her uneasy. Like Chase had when he'd first arrived. It was probably his clothing that had done that to her, but he'd turned out perfectly normal.

"Room 213."

"Thanks."

--

The lift made its typical 'ding' sound, and let Cameron out to walk down the hallway to Chase's flat.

She knocked quietly on the door, waiting for a response while she fixed her hair out of her face in the reflection of the room number plaque.

"Is anyone in there?" She asked and peeked through the open spy hole.

Nobody answered, but was that stifled sobbing she could hear? It was definitely common in the oncology ward to hear the same sound that was coming from under the door. Surprisingly, the lock clicked open.

It was the most depressing sight she'd seen. The table was set up nicely, but there was no food on it. A candle had been lit, but now it was about to go out.

The most upsetting part of it was Chase, hunched over as possible on the couch fingering a bracelet and crying.

"Oh, God. Chase, are you alright?"

"She did it. Pip's dumped me."

A/N: Oh, big-arse cliff-hanger! Now what are our wombats gonna do now? Warning, I downsized the CamChase to friendship, so don't get your hopes too high fellow shippers. I don't mind it myself, Chameron is one of the better 'ships out there, but I'm scared I'll screw it up.


	12. Figure

Chapter 11: Figure

Not much was said for about a quarter of an hour. Chase just leant over onto Cameron's formerly dry shoulder and wept. That curious bracelet had fallen to the floor after he'd collapsed into her arms with hysterical sobs, and while she'd been stroking his back, she'd only begun to notice how uncomfortable the compassionate hug was.

"Umm…Robert? Your baby doesn't seem to like being squashed."

Chase broke out of the upset bawling, "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry, mate." He shuffled back from her, patting the offending bump with a half-smile.

"I guess we were never formally introduced; when do I get to hear more about my co-worker's little boy or girl?"

"All right then." Turning his attention to Joey, "Okay, this is Dr. Allison Cameron. She's one of Daddy's work mates, really nice and friendly."

Cameron smiled at that, and then turned her gaze towards Chase's shirt-covered belly. "I guess that's pretty much right. So, what are you like most of the time?"

"I guess we're quiet most of the time, just a turn every once in a while, but sometimes, _especially_ after dealing with something serious at work, we go nuts. So instead of butterflies in your tummy, we get sparrows on steroids in the guts."

She laughed, then went to turn on the more serious issue; "How badly did she hurt you?"

"Pretty bloody bad. Apparently she's been having it off with someone else for four of the five months we were together. Oh, and she can fake orgasms brilliantly, too."

"Really? What's the guy's name? Whenever one of my friends was dumped, we'd bitch about their new partner. Always manages to help."

"Um…well, it was kinda strange…"

"Come on, they normally tell, what is it?"

"Angela."

That shut her up quickly. That was not a good note to end a relationship on. "Oh, dear God. And she never told you-"

"That she was a lesbian trying to convert herself and used me as some cute piece of ass that she was going to dump when she was sure she couldn't change, regardless whether he was banged up or not? No, it was never a major topic of discussion." Chase said sarcastically, falling back onto the pillows of the couch in defeat.

"And you know the _really_ sad thing? I thought this might have ended up in marriage, kids, and the whole meal deal thing. All this because of one friendly hug and kiss at a bar. God, how do I get myself into these messes?"

Cameron fell back into the couch with him; thinking about how she could help the situation. "Can I raid your fridge?"

"Yeah, just watch out for the soy milk. That was hers, and now I think it tastes toxic."

She smiled back into the fridge, looking around the shelves. From the lunches they'd had together, she'd assumed Chase was naturally compulsive about what he ate, choosing healthy over hearty. Peeking in again, she saw very few things that screamed "Bad for you!" even now, when hearty was supposed to be more appealing when someone was hanging around in your abdomen. Ah, there was an idea. Grabbing a block of chocolate and a few bits of coconut ice, she headed back into the lounge.

"OK! Part Two of How Girls Deal With Break-Ups: We grab the unhealthiest food we can find in the fridge and eat. Nobody will criticise you, or your ass, so dig in!"

Chase looked at her with some shock, but gladly took the chocolate and bit into it. With vigour. "Y'know, I swear my arse has gotten bigger, but then again, my whole body's been blown out of proportion-"

"Shut it. I don't care about your figure, bingeing is when you don't care about something like that."

"Now you sound like House!"

Cameron smiled, then suddenly remembered part of why she'd come over mainly because of a spicy smell coming from the kitchen, "Oh, I think dinner's ready!"

"Crap, you're right! Oh, dear dear dear…" Chase cried leaping up from the couch and pacing quickly back into the kitchen, stirring up the satay rice into two blue china bowls.

Bringing the food back in, the sat and ate in silence for a minute or two. Chase ran his fingers through his hair when he looked down to see the bracelet on the floor. It was a fine gold chain, with round little light-green emeralds and blue, square-cut topaz glinting in the light from the ceiling.

"I gave it to her as a six-month gift; she flung it on the floor when she headed for the door."

Cameron looked down at it. Boy, she really mustn't have felt anything if she could have ditched a gift like that.

Speaking of gifts, she remembered "Oh, I've got something from Meri for you." Heading back to the hall where she'd put the gift after running over to check on her colleague and friend. She took it back to the couch, and watched him carefully open it.

Inside explained the squishiness of the gift: a white, knitted blanket with a lamb embroidered in the corner. It was looking up whimsically at the word "Sweetie".

Chase chuckled for a moment, "This was the baby blanket Meri's mum made for her. Right before our last set of finals, she mailed it to her from rainy Wales as a "good luck" gift."

There were two other objects I the bundle, a large fish pendent on a finer silver chain than the bracelet on the floor and a small box.

"And this," he explained, "is a birthday present from five years ago, and this," he said while pointing at the little box, "plays 'Danny Boy'."

So, Idnax had sent some of her things to Chase for emotional support. It was a sweet enough idea, but maybe not as sentimental as what Cameron did next.

She began to wind up the little box in the clockwise direction, and when the lilting tune began to play, she leant over and placed it on his stomach, which was partly covered by Chase's hand, assuming Joey must have been moving around. Cameron listened to the tune:

"_And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me_

_And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be_

_If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me_

_I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me."_

Chase smiled, and mouthed "Thank You.", then closed his lids and smiled in his sleep.

Cameron nodded in welcome. Deciding to clean up the bowls so he wouldn't have to in the morning, she headed to the kitchen. His bowl had some of the rice in it, maybe she could have it. She had a long walk back to her apartment; he wasn't going to hunt her down, especially now he had become much gentler. House had begun to make jokes about that fact.

Looking into the bowl again, she thought that maybe she could wait to get home before eating again. Surely satay rice with French onion dip mixed in was not delicious to anybody else but him.

A/N: Yeah, yeah. It got sappy at the end, but hey. And I KNOW Danny Boy's and Irish song, don't beat me up for it! I just thought it sounded nice for the mood…Gah! I need a chapter that's sap-free! But still…

_I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me._


	13. Verdict

Chapter 12: Verdict

A/N: (In which we find out the punishment of Racknell's catfight.)

Waiting outside the board room was getting irritating for all. The ducklings that weren't on trial were sitting on a group of four chairs, murmuring worriedly. No matter how much counselling Racknell had received from Stacy's replacement, the cards were stacked against her. Big time.

House didn't intend on congregating with his ducks, so Wilson had come over to sit, and be silent. Twirling his cane between his left hand's fingers, he asked a question from the blue,

"Give me three words that describe how Chase looks physically now."

"Is that a demand or burning question?"

"I haven't said 'please' since I was four. You do the math."

From a distance, Wilson picked up a few things: Chase had given up on belts, was wearing clothes that were slightly looser, and "delicate" wasn't going to be a great descriptive word.

"Big?"

"My 10th grade teacher gave me a C- for that response. Think more adjectival."

"Is that a word?"

"'Phat' certainly isn't."

Wilson sighed, "Gravid, vibrant, fertile. Oh, fact-wise, 29 weeks."

"Not as insulting as what I was thinking, but I guess. The whole Earth Mother crap doesn't suit him though."

"And neither does Yummy Mummy."

"Really? I think that suits my bitch perfectly. Ass before ankle biters."

"Uh huh."

"Dar dump."

"What are you on now?"

"I'm warning you, dar dump."

"House…"

"Dar dump dar dump dar dump…" House continued, pointing in the direction of a fastly approaching Cuddy.

In a few seconds, she was standing over them, but looked more alarmed than angry. "How long has Elaine been in there?"

"Twenty minutes. Give me three words that describe how Chase looks physically now."

Cuddy raised her eyebrow for a second, and then took a moment to think about it. "At seven months? Flesh, curves…"

"Little person inside him?"

"He looks fine, if not uncomfortable in his own skin."

"Yeah. Whatever; must be a chick thing she's talking about."

"Dr. House, you presence is needed at Dr. Racknell's verdict." A member of the board had peeked outside the door of their cage of fear, looking for the doctor on trials superior.

"Coming; just let me take my time, bum leg and all."

The member just nodded his head and went back inside the cage.

"_So, what'll the punishment be for causing a catfight?"_ House pondered to himself before finding the chair next to Racknell and plonking down in it.

"Dr. Elaine Racknell: You're on delayed trial today due to starting a riot in the nurse's lounge between yourself and Nurse Tai Ogden after striking Nurse Martine Salam across the face…"

"_You bitch-punched a nurse because she was calling Cameron fussy, Idnax Irish, _

_Chase fat and you a Guinea Pig…"_

"Your actions caused Ms. Salam to break her nose…"

"_Derange it; noses are made of cartilage…"_

"And causing Miss Ogden to sprain her ankle."

"_Keep in mind she was sticking up for her family-like colleagues, and 'Miss Ogden' (the slut) couldn't seem to make up her mind on which ankle was sprained."_

"You also cursed and gave crude hand signs to Nurses Ogden and Salam when Drs. Cameron and Idnax tried to restrain you, and stamp on Dr. Lisa Cuddy's foot when she spoke to you not half an hour after the incident occurred."

"_You have the brain capacity to do THAT!"_

"As punishment, you are suspended for four days, on probation for a month, and will be seen to a counsellor to prevent this sort of thing from happening again."

"Oh, really? I thought you could have spanked her a little. Unlike some of my lackeys, she doesn't like it." House piped up after his mental audio commentary.

"Dr. House, you are to ensure that any other member of your staff is accompanying Dr. Racknell in the hallways, and while treating her patients."

"Right-o, Kirk."

"This hearing is adjourned." The solemn board member said. The nurses who had blown the whistle did not look impressed at what she received. A longer suspension, a firing, anything longer would have made it seem more to them in their facial expression.

"'C'mon, whitey. We've got a lounge to daydream in."

"Coming, snarky." Racknell said, smoothing her skirt down again and standing up to go outside.

"You know, you could have bagged them out a lot more. They scratched you; I can still see three of four scars. It was _your_ shoe they broke, it was _your_ inflamed ankle-"

"A suspension I can deal with. Firing, no. Bagging them out would have made it worse, and make me look like them."

"Yeah, and the hookers have me on the top of their little black books." House said, watching the other four of his employees walk over to question them. Chase, as usual now, was slowest.

"How bad off are you?" Foreman asked.

"I'll be back on Tuesday, someone's going to be over my shoulder for four weeks, and I have to talk to some know-it-all if I ever want to punch somebody again."

"Right."

"Personally, I don't think that's too bad."

"No, I guess it could have been a lot worse for you."

"Yeah," Chase agreed, "I guess things could be."

A/N: Yeah, not very interesting an end. I know, can ya blame me? I just thought that I needed to have some sort of fate for Racknell after the cat fight, and this is the chapter I've done it in. I can't post for a while, as I'm going camping on the weekend, and, yeah. Chapter 14, Lethargy, will come sooner or later!


	14. Lethargy

A/N: Sorry for the long, long update! Here we all are again. For those who care about what I think, my camp was good. I didn't get sunburnt, bitten to death by mozzies, or anything nasty like that. Please excuse if this is corny, I watched _Saved!_ (A good movie, especially if you're like House). Still, it was pretty tempting to do it, especially when I got the idea in my insomniac moments.

Chapter 13: Lethargy

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you now!" the livid boss screamed at his self-assured employee.

"I brought you a biscuit." The employee replied smugly.

Chase laughed mirthfully at the TV show. One of his old mates from uni had sent him a DVD box set of a show that had been airing in Australia, and it had been a local hit. He'd sent it over for a laugh, something of which Chase needed several of lately. Most women at the clinic said they'd been feeling excellent, but he'd been begging to differ. With running around to save patients from keeling over, he'd been feeling pretty tempted to join them. Only just this week had House decided to leave his work at research and bouncing around ideas in the office.

Now, lying on his couch in the flat that had once been shared, Chase felt no better than a piece of road kill. Sleep seemed like the best thing to look forward to when he came home from work. However, who the hell was banging on the door?

"Fine, I'm coming!" Chase grumbled, sliding into a sitting position before getting up slowly to answer the door. Hoping that his pants weren't too creased or that his skin didn't look too bright, he walked-maybe waddled, huh, he was living up to his name as a duckling- over to the door.

What was standing in front of that was making him made him reconsider the functioning of his brainwaves? There was Cameron; only her hair was wrapped up in a bun, clad in a leotard, a long tutu, thick stockings and leg warmers with a pair of pink and battered ballet slippers.

To her left was Foreman. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a Fred Astaire movie, only in full colour and minus the tap shoes. Besides that, he didn't look too bad.

Racknell was probably the most sensible of them in the hall, if it was the street heading down to the White House in 1977. The stereotypical meaning of "punk" was fully expressed in her attire. Was that a _real_ tongue piercing floating in her mouth?

"Alright, what drugs have you lot not fully disposed of?"

Foreman laughed hysterically. "You can't be serious? You've lived in the states for two and a half years and _still_ no one's told you what Halloween is?"

"Um, yeah. I just haven't really had a ballerina, a man of wealth and taste and AC/DC and the Rolling Stones' love child come to my door before."

"It's nice to hear that I'm the love child of a drunk and resident physcos." Racknell said sarcastically, fiddling with her safety pin earring.

Cameron started to explain, "Well, the hospital _is_ holding a costume party tonight; you're one of us-"

"I know, I know, but I've only got five more weeks and…"

"We got you a sexy pirate top!" Racknell cried with glee, holding up a black, cotton with only a few ruffles on its long sleeves. Besides that, it was fairly nice.

"You don't like it? Geez, we even got in a larger size with stretchy material. We tried it on Foreman, for God's sake!"

"Hey, I DO like it. I just feel more like Santa than Jack Sparrow."

Foreman smirked at this in what maybe could have been agreement, maybe not. "Santa's not coming for a few more months, and Joey will be out by then."

Chase smirked back, "Hopefully, Joey's pretty lazy these days, only kicks when you offer food. But I felt really tired after work-"

"Oh, come on! Even my psychotic Hare Krishna friends dress up! What are you, an atheist?" Racknell whined.

"I'm a Catholic, not a fanatic." Chase said, gesturing to them to come in. "Cameron, you know where the coffee pot is. I wish you luck in finding the coffee though."

Cameron nodded, walking into the kitchen. Foreman and Racknell found seats and took them promptly. Chase headed into the privacy of his bedroom.

One thing he'd noticed with his growing frame was that he'd seemed to have gone through a few varying stages. Stage one had been eight months ago; he'd been looking his version of the norm. Not painfully thin like House joked about, but softer, maybe slight curves. That was when there were no hints whatsoever about what might change his life now he was twenty-seven.

Stage two, had been around seven to five months ago. Nausea and fatigue had hit. Hard, and it wasn't helping much with putting weight on around anywhere else but his hips. That had been weird, not knowing what was going on.

Stage three? That was probably around when he'd found out; when weight started appearing back in other places he'd lost it. If House had an opinion on it? "The plumping stage".

"And, now here we are, having a go at squeezing into a pair jeans that fit two weeks ago. I love you, but you are really making it difficult to find something to wear." Chase murmured, smiling and looking down to pat his rounded tummy.

"Chase? You alive in there?" Racknell called from the lounge.

"Um, yeah. Just a minute."

The next minute was spent shuffling into a looser pair of jeans and slipping on a pair of dirty sand shoes. The few seconds after that, he was back out in the lounge.

Somebody else had joined them, and she looked dead waterlogged.

If his memory of high school Shakespeare was correct, Ophelia had drowned herself towards the end of Hamlet. If that was right, there she was on the couch, fiddling with a fish-shaped pendant.

"Oh, you're ready?" Idnax asked, seemingly embarrassed by her dead appearance. God, if her mother saw her now…"You look fantastic now."

"You think? It kind of hugs my stomach a bit-"

"C'mon, Chase. You do look brilliant." Cameron smiled.

"Right," Foreman said, banging his coffee mug down. "We ready to go?"

"Yeah." Everyone else replied.

--

As most Halloween parties loaded with teenagers go, they can get pretty wild. Replace teenagers with doctors and nurses who are _allowed_ to drink alcohol and smoke; well, it sounded pretty scary.

Talk and laughter rang throughout the venue, those who smoked were letting it rise to the ceiling, Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" was playing at full bore (how the hell does that even classify as a song for Halloween?). On the stage, several skinny nurses were performing a flimsy routine to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Most doctors were dressed as typical scary things; most nurses looked like they wanted to get laid.

"Well, might as well find something to gape at." Idnax said, looking over at some drunken nurse-on-intern action.

"Actually," Chase said, putting a fidgety hand on his stomach, "I'm feeling peckish. I never had dinner; can I grab something to eat?"

"Yeah, of course. I'll grab us some drinks, the blood blackberries look good. Want one, Cameron?" Racknell asked chirpily.

"Yeah, sounds good. Want a beer, or a yeast fright, or whatever the hell they call 'em now it's Halloween?" Cameron replied.

"Sure, and you Id?" Foreman asked, continuing the circle of drink orders.

"I'll think I might drive tonight. I'll get some sort of fruit juicy thing, but no lime!" Idnax said.

Cameron made a verbal list. "Okay; so its blood blackberries for Racks and I, beer for Foreman, and apple juice for you. Maybe a sparkling water for-"

"I think I might have half a glass of white wine. Chardonnay sounds good." Chase interrupted. They all stared in a surprised manner, before Cameron defended her choice of drink.

"Chase, are you sure? It's not really that wise to be drink-"

"Hey, this is a fun night, and as a doctor, I thought we might know what is and isn't good for 35-week-old foetuses, who aren't really gonna care if a smidgen of wine's running through my veins." Chase snapped back.

Slightly shocked by this, Cameron nodded and let him go off in search of food…

Shortly after collecting his half-glass of wine, Chase wandered over to find something for a light dinner. By luck, he found a small buffet of food that wasn't dyed bile green or blood red. Taking a sniff of the good smells coming from the steaming trays made his mouth water and his stomach growl.

"God, how boring must he food be for you to be drooling over it? Gluttony, sixth deadly sin. May explain your waistline." A grumpy voice casually commented.

Not even a new intern couldn't have guessed who that voice belonged to. Chase turned around, ready for another battle of words with House, dressed as a Victorian gentleman.

"I thought you were the first to suspect I was pregnant. I'm growing, it's this inevitable thing that happens when you're expectant; like your boss hassling you."

"Wah, you're up the spout? That explains a lot; bulging belly, holding onto your back, being incredibly smart all of a sudden, never thought you might actually have a brain inside you for a while."

"Oh, really? Get stuffed." Chase said bluntly, turning his back on Abraham House and heading off to find the group again.

"Hey, not that you haven't lost it! Even lesbians are after you!" House yelled out, unintentionally pulling the last straw. Chase came storming back, a look of fury in his eyes.

"What…did you just say!"

"God, didn't Pip tell you? Well, I checked her for STDs, mainly as an excuse to see if she was les. Her skirts are short, her tops too tight. Either she was a whore or in need to straighten herself out." He was still joking, even thought Chase no longer was.

"Well, don't we know how to break up relationships better than a hooker?"

"Thanks, but-"

"And my shape! Get a life, bastard! Find somebody who might care about what you think!"

"You're yelling, you're caring…" House explained, before five fingers said one word to his stubbled cheek.

"Go to hell." Chase said, turning his head away so his boss didn't have to see his watery eyes and stalking off.

He was so angry? He had his own life, Stacy had proven that. Why must he interfere with everyone else's business? All he wanted now was to go home, get away from this insane gathering. Brushing past Count Dracula-Wilson and Cuddy, Goddess of Elegance, he started to realise how exhausted he was feeling.

"Hey! Chase, are you alright?" Cuddy flagged him down by his shoulder, making him look into her eyes.

"No…House…" Chase said, before he felt his knees give way to his heavy body before blacking out. The last thing her heard was Wilson crying out "Oh, not this again."

A/N: Cliffy, dar dump dar dump dar dump…Never you mind what's wrong now. NOT.


	15. Swing

A/N: Hey y'all, once again. Now, one question that's been burning on everyone's minds (well, I assume it is, even thought I'll probably say it and everybody will be like "Huh! Oh, yeah. Xandi's got a point."): When's Chase gonna drop the god-damn kid! It'll happen soon, pets…very, very soon.

GENERAL WARNING: There will be a lot more swearing from now on….

Chapter 15: Swing

Chase found his vision was still blurry and unfocused. He knew he was on his back, slightly raised off the ground. Something was supporting him, and his abdomen felt cold; like there was something being pushed around on it. Someone was pushing hair off his face…

"Cuddy, he's waking up." A familiar male voice told said woman. It wasn't House or Foreman, who was the last guy he'd seen?

_Wilson_, a little voice hinted. His eyes snapped open to see Cuddy snapping her hand back and turning to fiddle with some patient notes and Wilson ultra sounding his belly.

"What happened?" He asked blearily. That was the first question on his mind.

"You were at the Halloween party with us. You walked past us looking pretty angry, you fainted, Cuddy and I carried you here, and now we're just checking you out for why you fainted."

"And…?"

"All that's wrong with you is that your blood sugars low. Try to have dinner before you go to bed tonight." Cuddy said, holding a test result, smiling optimistically.

"Your ultrasound looks good too. Baby's healthy, obviously doing something right. Did anyone ever tell you-"

"-If I was having a boy or a girl? No, that's another surprise." Chase chuckled, preferring to look down at his stomach instead of the screen. "I think it's a girl, I don't know, just had this feeling…Who wants to get rid of that element of surprise?"

"It might be useful when deciding whether you can trade hair tips or not." House piped up from the corner.

"Oh, shut up. You've got enough punishment clinics as it is." Cuddy snapped.

"Why do I always get clinic as punishment?"

"Because if I did what I _really_ wanted to punish you with, I'd be on murderer's row."

"Oh, J.Lo wants to pull a move on me."

"Bite my-"

"Anyway," Wilson interrupted, turning back to Chase. "You don't have any definite indication of hypertension, but your blood pressure's slightly over normal levels. I think it'd be a good time to take a break."

The look on Chase's face was obviously not his idea of how things would be run. Work had been keeping him sane; something more ideal to focus on than his personal and romantic life.

"No. I'm fine where I am at work, even if it's not practical stuff, I can at least run tests still, give differential diagnoses-"

"Actually, I like Wilson's thinking. Sorry buddy; you've been busted. I found a rattle in your basket. It's time to go…"

"NO! House, I'm fine where I am! It keeps me busy, it's not affecting my personal life-"

"It's causing you to make your heart explode, and I really can't stand week-old babies, they're at their worst then. Forget toddlers."

"Stop it! Both of you!" Cuddy screeched. God, how many men did she need to piss her off tonight? Before she spoke again, she closed her eyes and counted to ten to try and prevent explosions.

"House, your point seems to be that Chase needs rest for the next few weeks. I agree; Chase, you need to relax and focus more on yourself-"

"That's not too hard-"House butted in.

"I'm warning you!" Cuddy glared daggers at him.

"Look, its fine. I can work still, if anything I feel more useful. You'd be surprised at what I can-Ow!"

Chase reached for something to hold. Leaning forward, he wondered what the hell was going on. Cuddy with her bun of curly locks raised her eyebrows in surprise. Wilson, thinking more rationally, went over to see what he could do. House, as usual, did nothing. Except twirl his cane.

"Feel that? It's called a Braxton Hick. Naturally, most other women decide this might be a good time to put their feet up and rest…but if it really matters to you, we might work something out."

Chase looked up; the sudden knotting in his guts was subsiding. "I think I will."

--

Clinics are rather foreboding places at times. They're fine when there's lots of people who've come worrying about colds and things that happened last week, not so fine when you're the only one sitting there with some random person who doesn't seem too interested in having an upper respiratory condition. More likely chances are they're interested in you.

The day had been somewhat usual for him: Idnax had been shaking him awake, trying to get him out of whatever nightmare he might have been having. Assuring her that he hadn't been dreaming about the baby's death, watching it being taken away, or House. Willingly eating the breakfast she made before heading off to work, then pacing around the lounge trying to shake off any indigestion. This would normally end in a trip to the bathroom, then crawling back into bed for a nice, long sleep.

So when Chase sat down that afternoon on a chair for one last check-up, how convenient that he sat down next to some whack-job. Well, she might have been; her hair was pink and thinly pigtailed, she had four holes in her right ear. She was a little shorter than he was, and maybe she was thin, like he used to be. One of her red Converses had a dirty great slash right through it, and that light green tutu skirt, matching corset shirt and purple fishnets didn't look too sane. Still, there she was, popping her gum as loud as humanly possible.

He hadn't had a good night's sleep for days. And night was the key word there. When Cameron called around in the morning, she'd just left a note. When Idnax had called in to take him to the clinic, she'd had to shake his shoulder very hard to get his attention. Now, with that gum popping in his ear…

"Would you mind not doing that?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too agitated.

She shuffled around in a reluctant manner, "What if I don't?"

Hmmm, good point. "I'm sorry; look, I haven't slept for nights. It's just very annoying to me, that's all." He apologised quietly.

"Well maybe you should think about defending yourself a bit more before you back down like that." The girl said, coyly twirling her bright pink hair.

"We've got the time; why don't we make idle chit chat that's not really gonna affect either of us in ten years time?" she suggested, not knowing that maybe, it would. "Ok then. Why are you here?"

Tough call. It was six days away until he'd be allowed to join a single parents club according to Wilson. His back had been hurting more than usual, standing on his two feet felt like it was sucking away months of life. The only slight improvement was that he could breathe again and wasn't getting indigestion after breakfast. What could he tell her without suggesting anything?

"My back's been sore." Chase answered hurriedly. Would she buy that?

"Oh, I see. I'm waiting for a friend; she's just picking up a prescription from the chemist, God knows why she's taking so long."

Mentally thanking his lying ability, Chase shuffled his shoulders around the seat in a vain attempt to feel more comfortable. He was about to turn to ask this girl a question again; but she had gone to see somebody.

The friend the girl had mentioned was familiar. Slightly thinner, redder hair than who he was once connected with.

"Hey, Odie. Done now?" the girl asked the familiar one, smacking a kiss on her petite girlfriend's cheek. She was wearing Greek pants, a T-Shirt saying "My face is up here!" and calf-high boots. Clothes that were so familiar…

"Yeah, I'm good now. Got enough Ibuprofen to last a fortnight. C'mon, Ella."

Oh, no. This must be Angela. Hopefully, they'd just walk out the door and not talk to him any more.

Before they headed out the door, Angela turned around again. "Oh God, sorry! I'm rude; this is my girlfriend, Odessa."

It figured.

"What, never seen a lesbian before? Fine, I'm out, get over it."

Pip tried to reassure her flustered girlfriend, "Hey, hey. Darling, calm down, it's Ok! We know each other…"

"…In fact, we've even slept with each other."

This was obviously news to Angela. "Odie, you told me that you dumped your boyfriend because he got engaged to his other straight girl!"

"…That's…sort of right…"

"Look, I can handle little lies; like where you hid my keys on my birthday and why you told me the end of _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_. Lies like telling me that this boyfriend knocked her up-"

"Angela, there was no other girlfriend. The other girlfriend was you!"

"Yeah, so what are you tellin' me, the boyfriend got knocked up!"

Ok, tricky explanation. Pip didn't want to do it; Chase definitely didn't want her to do it. Still, she nodded her head. Crap, Chase thought to himself. The baby seconded that with a swift kick and going into a bout of hiccups. Not to mention that his abdomen was starting to hurt like hell…

Angela was gagging with disbelief. "You girl, are hiding more than just lies from me. You are hiding crack or something!"

"Nope, sorry Ella. It's the truth."

Meanwhile, down the other side of the clinic, a certain doctor was watching this fight with intent interest.

"_I wonder when we get the mud out…"_ House thought to himself, hobbling over to get a better earful.

"…You just can't help yourself, can ya? You get one relationship going right, then you realise that swinging to the other side of the pitch suits you better!"

"Hey, how about you both shut up for a minute and- Holy shit!" Chase cried.

One second he'd been calm and collected, watching this fight take place, the next, he was soaking wet from the pants down. House thought this might be a good time to butt in.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Gregory House, your tour guide for today. Look, I apologise if the wombat just peed all over you, we can clean that up very quickly."

"No, House. My waters just broke."

A/N: Er, heh heh. This can be explained…By the way, out of interest. Whose got a favourite House-ism, or anybody-ism?


	16. Party

Chapter 16: Party

"Oh, my God." Pip speculated.

"Sorry, could someone tell me how the HELL water can break, let alone with him!" Angela asked with rising confusion.

"You might learn some more if you shut up and listened to the ones with the medical degrees." House snapped at her. "Well, Chase. Gonna explain it? I'm assuming you did do Wilson's homework."

Chase snapped out of blinking in shock at his feet, and began to explain it to Angela. "Well, it's quite odd, really. I've got a disorder called Hippocampus Syndrome that allows me to conceive. Only found out about it six months ago that I had it, so it was hard to prevent this from happening." He paused for a moment, rolling his eyes at himself.

"Good, but Conception and Pregnancy are the first two stages of life. They're boring; Stage Three's much more cool and gory." House said, nodding back to Chase.

"So now, thanks to all of this, I've got an opening, which in several hours time a baby's gonna come out of." He finished explaining, blushing and turning back to his feet.

Angela stared like she'd seen been asked the square root of a Dali painting.

"_Damn, why must I explain these things?"_ House thought.

"You saw _Alien_?"

Angela thought about that one. She'd watched it once at friend's house in the eighties, but was only interested in the part where-

"Out your gut! You're gonna have a baby _out your gut_!"

"Ding ding ding! Would you like to go for six hundred?" House triumphantly beamed.

"Could you speak a little louder, Ella? I'm sure there are some people in Detroit that didn't quite hear you then." Pip mumbled.

"Right, so what's our plan of action?" House asked, swivelling around on his cane to turn to Chase.

"Plan of action was to get checked in privately in six days time, have a C-section and-"

"-so much for plan A. Now, how 'bout my plan? I say we take the bike back to my place, grab a hot midwife and her assistant, and watch porn until you drop it like it's hot."

Chase's blue-green eyes widened underneath a fine curtain of shaggy blonde hair that was long overdue for a trim.

"Your house?"

"Well, yeah. Your apartment doesn't allow that many visitors, the delivery ward would be a dead giveaway-"

"Why can't it just be a private room?"

"-On the other hand, you've got a point. Maybe blondes aren't that dumb after all."

"I have another brain inside me, remember?"

House paused for a moment, and then wagged a finger at Chase "Good point there. I'm going to dance for Cuddy, and we'll sort something out."

Chase brushed the curtain of blonde back and looked House in the electric blue eye, "Why are you doing this? You're never nice to me."

House looked back at a currently cerulean eye, "Because this is not normal, Chase. This is not biologically normal, this is not going to be a normal day and this will not be a normal experience for any of us, and it certainly won't be normal for you. It's going to be bloody, dirty and humiliating, but, hey. That's birth for you."

Quietly, he nodded as he watched House take a Vicodin. Then doubled over, nearly falling over a chair.

"Whoa! Hang in there; we're getting you a room right now. You two, go back to his place and get his bag."

--

House had stuck to his word. Ten minutes after the promise had been made, Chase was whisked away into a private room, all cleaned up from the fluid and little bit of blood that had seeped out. The only people who were permitted to go into his room were House, Wilson, Cuddy, the other ducklings, the two "pouters" (as House nicknamed them) and two nurses: Brenda, and her personal ass-kisser, Martine.

Now, the boys were sitting around, waiting for House's plan of action.

"Right, since Thanksgiving's in eight days time, plus the fact that Robert's parent's are out of town, we're gonna have a party up in the private ward. The girls have gone over to try and help him get ready. You know the ones; the cheerleaders, the book worms, and those two dykes who kissed at the prom."

He watched the looks on their faces in an attempt to work out who he was talking about. When everybody else's faces were straight again, he continued,

"Okay, so they're doing their thing, the cheerleaders are prepping him, you know, hair…and the rest are there for moral and medical support. We, as good friends, have our own jobs to do. The nerd and I over there," he said, pointing to Wilson, "Are going to get all necessary food supplies. The delinquent," pointing at Foreman "might be good enough to keep any gatecrashers away, along with the help of the class president, you know, the untouchable one with the chest."

More confusion appeared on their faces, but disappeared again one they thought they got the gist of it.

"Now, Chase is supplying the music, he will be, all night long. However, he needs to keep in mind that if we play the music too loudly, neighbours might hear us, and will report back to the gate crashers. Besides that, have a great party tonight."

A/N: Right, there we go. I hope that metaphorical speech just then didn't confuse you too much. The good stuff comes next…


	17. Aid

Chapter 17: Aid

It had been four hours since Chase had been admitted. All the women were doing their best to try and suggest thing to stop any forthcoming pain. Pain meds, walking, even rolling balls on the curve of his spine, Chase had turned them all down, and reverted to lying on his left side on the hospital bed, clutching Pip's far-too-soft hand.

Nobody really talked about the issue at hand; maybe they were afraid of upsetting him. Once the small talk had run out, they'd been asking him every now and then if he was alright. How could they ask that? He felt like he had stomach ulcers, appendicitis, kidney stones and food poisoning all at once, and all they could ask was "Are you alright?"! Of course not, it hurt like hell every eight minutes now, how could he be…

"Rob, it's been nice holding your hand again, but I'd like my circulation back now." Pip candidly said, holding up their joint hands. He noticed that his nails were digging into her flesh, and two of her fingers were turning purple from lack of blood.

"Oh, God. Sorry. Did I drift off?" Chase asked sheepishly, realising that he wasn't having a contraction at the moment and letting go of Pip's hand.

Cameron smiled "For a while. We'd asked you if you wanted any pain meds, but you said no." she walked around the bed to kneel down next to his face.

"Hey, pethidine or an epidural is not going to hurt the baby. We're not going to make fun of you because you're in pain."

"Yeah, I know Cameron, but there are chances complications could arise, I could prolong my labour, and-" Chase immediately leant back, focusing on breathing in and out, the tension on Pip's palm increased.

"Women give birth in their own homes every day with just a towel and a bucket of water-"

"Women die in their own homes giving birth every day." Angela piped up from the corner, watching Martine snap on a pair of gloves, ready to measure again. All three surrounding the bed glared at her.

"Shut up Ella." They all snapped.

"Excuse me Miss Nombre, but I'm going to have to get Robert to sit up again, for another check." Brenda instructed, nodding to Cameron that it was now a good time to help Chase up again.

Meanwhile, Idnax had just hopped out of the lift from collecting a coffee on the floor below. It wasn't that she was tired, more the fact that she needed something to calm herself down with. Becoming a mother in a few hours time was a very scary prospect.

"_Relax; everything's going to be just fine with Rob. Nothing much will have happened while you were gone…"_

As she watched trough the glass from a few metres away, she saw her friends and co-workers cuddling each other as close as possible. Maybe not.

--

Elaine was feeling tired, but Dr. Racknell couldn't allow that, especially seeing in maybe a few hours time she'd have to deliver. Yet she was in need of a break, and snapping off her gloves and heading to the nearest coffee machine sounded appealing at the moment. Her chances of this happening right now were cut short as her boss and his friend approached.

"Checked five minutes ago, dilated to five and a half. He's not screaming or being an ass, yet he's refusing all pain meds, which I think is stupid but I'm not the one pushing a baby out my front." She rattled off and threw her hands up in the air for defence.

"Great, that's great. I remember my first baby, it was a big baby, and it hurt like hell. I congratulate him for thinking that he can go through it." House snarked back.

"Hey, there's no way of convincing him. It looks like he's in a lot of pain-"

"Oh! I get it! Water spurts out from his belly, then his muscles start tensing together to remove the offending object, and from that I could have deducted that he's in a lot of pain! God, I feel so stupid!"

"You know that's not what I meant. Just let me get a coffee and-"Racknell paused as she looked down at her now beeping pager.

"Cameron's calling me. It looks pretty urgent, and he's asking for you." She raced off down the hall back to the private room.

House turned to Wilson, inquisitively. Chase could wait for a minute. "Do you know if Joey's past being an it yet?"

Wilson gave one of those grins you give when somebody's asking you about a big secret; you know the answer and want to play. "I do…"

"Why didn't you tell me!"

"Why, you never asked. Like you said, you haven't said please since you were four." He smiled manically.

"Grow up; I need to go see what type of lamingtons he wants."

--

Things were different this time when House walked in to the private room. The nurses and Angela were clumped in a corner, unsure of what to do. Cameron and Pip were either side of Chase, who was bolt up right in the slightly more comfortable bed. He had a look of fear in his eyes, arms like supporting stick behind him. There was even some sweat on his patient gown.

House privately felt very concerned, and curious to why he was so uptight now.

"House, there's something I need you to do for me."

One eyebrow raised, "A new abdomen? Sorry, I'm fresh out."

"No, seriously. I need you to find Meri; I haven't seen her since I got here. She'd better be lying on the street, dead before she doesn't come here, because-"

With a small grunt and through clenched teeth, Chase continued talking through a contraction "-I am having her baby, and she's got to be here to help me through this! I can't do it alone-"

"Chase, we're here for you." Cameron whispered as a last-ditch attempt to calm him down.

"You didn't bump into me in the bar!" Chase snapped back, scrunching up his eyes. Cameron brushed it off as a reaction to the pain, giving House a look to do as he was told.

Where could Idnax be?

A/N: Oops! I did it again. I left you hanging there, and I hope you like drama, because that's what next chapter is!


	18. Choice

A/N: Ok! I've decided to do something drastic: A patient comes in, he's got a paramedic's hand and a bomb inside him…Oh, whoops. Wrong TV Show to parody. Now, here we are going to find out some of the story behind Idnax and Chase's previous relationship…and why she's refused to see him now. Serious this time, I hope this doesn't get pretentious.

Chapter 18: Choice

"_Geez, he really thinks that I could find a dragon in a hospital." _House mumbled inside his head. Personally, he didn't really think that Idnax would run off like this. She was the jumpiest of his team, yet she always managed to pull herself together when she was needed, like if a patient coded. It was a job requirement to be able to pull yourself together if you were a cardiologist, she knew the most about the heart compared to any of his ducklings and here she was breaking one, or two, he couldn't decide just yet.

"_If I was running from St. George, where would I go?"_

The roof. She knew that House sometimes went up there when he was tired, or angry about something. He hobbled over to the lift, hoping that he wasn't wrong.

--

Idnax didn't know exactly why she couldn't face the music about it. The roof just seemed like a good temporary escape. Yes, it was, she nodded to herself as she wrapped her black shawl around her tighter. Chase probably found Cameron a lot more useful than her at the moment. Idnax who fainted in a lecture on a liver dissection. Idnax who couldn't tell whether warafin was useful for a heart patient in a final exam. Idnax who burnt the toast and sent the whole dorm running at 5:30 in the morning because of the smoke alarm, every day of the first week.

They all had thought she was just odd and downright annoying at times. She tried to keep to herself, not to irritate anybody. Except Chase…

_Seven years ago, Meri was beside herself with humiliation. How could it only be her that could screw up a henna rinse so badly? From some stupid chemical in that had reacted with her hair, she now looked like Cookie Monster. If only she could just melt up into the earth._

_There was a knock at her door. Shit._

"_Gimme a second!" she called out; scurrying around her messy coffee table for a scarf she'd dumped there the other day. Idnax opened the door to see Chase standing there, not realising half her hair was still on display._

_Oh, heavens. Why did it have to be this gorgeous guy?_

"_Um, hi. I just moved into the flat next door, and now I've realised I'm out of milk. May I have some of yours?"_

_She thought about this one. "That's not really that good an idea."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because, it's Crazy Meri! I drink out of the carton, and there's no way I'll be giving you my insanity!"_

_He laughed at that. "You don't seem insane; just messy, clever and not very good with hair dye." He noticed, Double Shit._

"_Want to come in? You look able to keep your hair in good condition, got any tricks?"…_

Their first conversation together that might have taken off from somewhere. Thank God she'd found somebody on campus who didn't mind if she couldn't cook, cleaned her house when a rat appeared and laughed at the lecturers. So why couldn't she face him now? Did she have to be so jealous of Cameron? She knew that her relationship with Chase was no more than him being a big brother, so why was she feeling so insanely jealous about her baby? Maybe it was because she had known Chase was afraid when she'd collapsed…

_Five years later, another graduation party was on tonight. They didn't spend as much time in classes as they used to; he'd found more interest in intensive care, she in cardiology. That didn't stop them from moving in together as flatmates. Rumours started about them sexually, but she didn't care._

"_You finished in there?" Chase called out to her from the lounge._

"_Um, yeah. Just find my handbag, could you?" she cried out. She didn't want to tell him that her stomach hurt badly, her period was due, and he didn't need to know._

_Just a quick flick back of her wet hair, and…_

"_Meri! What are you doing in there!" Chase called out from the door, opening it up to get a scream back in response._

"_Rob…it really hurts…"_

He'd got an ambulance for her as quick as they'd been taught to do. They all thought she had appendicitis, but it wasn't as simple. One doctor had shown her an ultrasound of her ovaries; one had a tumour as big as a chicken's egg growing on it. It was benign, thank God, but it needed to be removed. One of the students had used her as a practice surgery, and accidentally removed her ovary with it. She thought the chances of getting pregnant would be slim. The chances of getting her best friend pregnant even slimmer…

_Five months ago, how weird did it feel to be working with Chase again? It was their first surgery together, for that minute, they were just scrubbing up._

"_So, four months is it?" she said, letting her mask hang around her neck while she helped him tie up his gown. "How are you today?" finishing up her job, and giving him a hug. She knew he had a girlfriend, but come on; it wasn't like she could hurt her from it._

"_I feel sick from this sterile environment, have heartburn, and-" he said, pausing and wondering if he should tell her the truth. "You're hugging my incredibly tender chest."_

"_Oh." She said, drawing back and fixing her mask to her mouth, confused. "I mean, I read somewhere that it's not as impossible for guys to conceive now, but lactation?"_

_Chase laughed shaking his head while tucking his hair under the required cap. "No, I guess that I'm storing fat there. It's gross, I know."_

"_Not really." She said, twisting her hair up into a bun that would fit under her surgical cap. Looking at him, Idnax could see that he had gone up the scales a bit, but nothing major. His stomach had also begun to swell. Thinking of the devil, one of his hands had flown to it in a protective way. _

"_You alright?" she asked, pushing her glasses up her nose._

"_Think so…it's just that…I've never felt this before." He pondered. She placed one of her hands on it to feel what he meant. She giggled._

"_I think Joey's moving, Rob." She said, hoping that he could see her smile while giving Joey a pat._

_They walked into the surgery again. The others in the theatre were curious about what was causing them to be so cheery and secretive in a heart transplant operation…_

It was starting to snow now. She should go in; before she wound up with the flu. Idnax turned around, into an unshaven face that smelt of coffee and Reuben.

"There's no need to take the Best for Baby thing so seriously. I mean, the roof is a bit over the top if you were smoking."

Idnax didn't want to talk to him right now. Couldn't House get his head out of everyone else's business?

"I did go to see him. _Cameron_ just seemed to be doing the better mothering job when I saw them hugging." Shit, did she make it obvious that she was jealous?

"Cameron does that. She sees a being that needs a shoulder to cry on, and then pounces when there's nothing in her way."

"I don't think I should get in their way."

"Oh, God's sake! So you think that because you've made his belly grow big and round you can play not part in his life because of her?"

"I don't want to get in their way; they've probably tapped each other! I'd just be a third wheel who provided their picture perfect baby!"

House knew that the truth would hurt right now. "Yeah, they have."

Big mistake, she had tears all the way down her cheeks now, now she could never be much good at getting her point across. "I knew it; they can just go and have their life. Cameron's won."

"You've hugged him way more than she has. Gone to see the classics, swapped clothes, picked out a flat. Cameron doesn't even know what a wombat is."

She smirked; her bout of crying was clearing up. "So, I guess I have a choice."

"Yeah. Either you take the lift to the ground floor to run away to a circus and dazzle them with your wits, or take the lift to the fifth floor, watch him sweat it out a bit, and then have a commitment for eighteen years. It's all yours, think about it, just not too long."

Idnax fiddled with the lapel of her white jumpsuit. She'd always wanted kids, but Cameron seemed to be so good at what she was doing…

"Fifth floor for me, thanks."

--

The two walked back to the private room, only to be met by a flustered looking Martine and Pip.

"Thank God you're here. It's been an hour!" Pip said while trying to catch her breath again, "Martine, can you explain what's happened?"

The Eurasian nurse nodded, patting down her braided sides "Chase has dilated to seven, but he's not acting so well."

"What do you mean?" Idnax asked, pulling her shawl up around her shoulders.

"He's given into the pain, not doing anything to manage with it. He's just given up, he needs you in there, girl." Pip said drawing the bottom line.

"Oh God, the Drama!" House said.

A/N: Actually, that last comment's more Xandi than House. You get the picture, no?


	19. Cry

A/N: Right, apologies for making you wait, but just a few things I'd like to make clear if you review. First things first, I like reviews; they make me feel pretentious-in-a-good-way. Secondly, I'd like to know on a scale of one to ten how well I've stayed in character with the cast, whether my OCs weren't too Mary-Sue-ish, and what lines were funny. What I find interesting is that the lines you guys like are the ones I just think up on the spot, but hey, enough from me. You go ahead and quit reading ramblings and more about babies slipping out.

Chapter 19: Cry

Oh, when was this going to end? Why couldn't they all just leave him alone while he went through this?

"Rob, it's alright. Everything's gonna be alright." Was that Meri coming in just now? Yes, she was rushing in to hush him, she let him grasp her hand, but he still had his head turned away from her.

"Thank God you're here." He said in a choked up voice, still refusing to let her see his face.

"Rob, it's okay. Racks just told me when I came in that you're nearly fully dilated, it's going to be okay." Idnax whispered. Privately, she was excited that their baby was so near. Yes, Chase was only a brother to her, nothing more than that, but hey, they were having a baby, wasn't she allowed to be all over him? Now all she could hope for was that she could help him gain some more confidence.

"It hurts. Everyone's been trying to help me, but-ah!" he tried to explain to her right when his abdominal muscles started to contract again. He couldn't stand it, a new bout of tears bunched up in his eyes.

Cameron, who had ushered herself into a corner, and er hen-pecking abilities were pricking up doubt from Idnax. She dare not interfere; only give them looks of hope and promise that this might be over shortly.

"This is not the Robert Chase I know." Idnax mentioned.

"Yeah, Robert Chase wouldn't have been afflicted with HS would he now?" Chase muttered, grunting a little and scrunching up his eyes letting the tears come forth.

"No, Robert Chase wouldn't let this get to him. He'd fight it, not be like this. I want to see him again, before you become two separate people." She argued.

"I know you can do this. You passed your exams when the dorms burnt down and you lost half your notes. You got out of that drunken brawl alive. Hell, you even dealt with having to clean the basement toilets that hadn't seen the light of day since '56! I believe…no, I _know_ that giving up is not you. Robert Chase would take this with a grain of salt, and fight back." She took his chin and made him look up at her, staring with firm compassion.

"Now, can I get behind your back?"

Chase nodded, it seemed like it was the right time to let her come in.

"Um, I don't know if this is going to be a problem, but I've never been to an antenatal class. Do I need to-"

"Just deaden your hand, and you'll be right." Pip muttered.

From then on, it was action stations. Idnax had hopped up onto the bed to hold onto Chase's back, Cameron had rushed around to take responsibility as Racknell's assistant. The nurses were waiting behind, obeying whatever they were to be told to do, collecting the blankets, clamps, suction...

Meanwhile, Chase was staring to notice how unbearably pressured his pelvis was feeling. If only…

"_I have to push!"_ he screamed.

Racknell barely flinched. "Not just yet, Chase. I'm not in the mood for playing catch with a slippery baby."

"I have to push, I have to…" the tone he used becoming more urgent.

"Okay, now you can start. Got yourself organised up there Id?"

"Yeah, I'm in need of pethidine too, now. But I'm ready." Idnax said, severely ticked off that her hand was going purple.

The next thirty second was filled with chants of "Push! Relax!", and a "Euw, gross!" from Angela, who left the room a pale green.

She bolted outside, right into the path of House and Wilson. Wilson grabbed her by the shoulder, trying to calm her down. House completely ignored her, and called back to the yelps coming from the private room.

"Oh, shut up in there! Sorry…duck of!"

They say that if we shrunk the world down to a village to one hundred people, there would be one person about to die, and one about to be born. At that moment, one person slipped into a coffin, and another slipped out.

Wilson made her look him in the eye, "Angela, are you-"

Suddenly interrupted by a swinging open of the door, and the cry of a newborn infant, Pip strode out, went straight up to her partner and gave a victory kiss.

"Wow, do we have some news?" House asked sarcastically at this display of affection.

Fine, might as well tell him now. "It's a girl, House." Wilson explained.

A/N: Okay, REALLY sorry that it's taken for bleeding ever to update. Fan fiction is plotting a war against me, and they've boycotted my computer. This one should have appeared on Sunday, but, you get the picture.


	20. Mention

A (Final)/N:

Hey, if you're hung around for long enough to read this.

I know fanfic hates you and will hunt you down and kill you for writing chapters like these, but I thought I might need to put an end to this.

No no, I'm not breaking up with a boyfriend I never had in the first place. I'm just finishing off this story. There was going to be another chapter, but due to awful, awful writer's block, I can't get it off my brain.

This is the end of my weird mind track's thought. I won't be posting anything for a few weeks, as I'm going away for Spring Holidays.

My next fic will be, once again, driven strongly by crack. It's called "Fun with House and Wilson", and it's basically having a stab at popular children's shows which shall remain anonymous.

Got another idea for a proper case fic, while I don't mind research, it's not my favourite thing in the world.

But anyway, see you later!

-Xandi


	21. Blanket

Chapter 20: Blanket

A week later: you could say everything was back to normal.

In a way.

They didn't really talk about what had happened much in the hallways, in case somebody got the drift about their conversation, and Chase would be all over them with the disloyalty card if they did that. Cameron had found that their latest 20-year-old male patient was great to smother, and House didn't really give a stuff about Foreman and Racknell, not even if they were having sex (according to he nurses, it was in a cupboard on the fifth floor, but it seemed out of character for both). Idnax had curtly come into his office one morning and promptly gave up her trial fellowship. She seemed disturbingly in love with her new little girl, so House let her go. More like kicked her out the door.

Even sadder, Cuddy had caught him being "busy" with Wilson while watching Pinky and the Brain and doing something else with a deck of cars. The Punishment was highly cruel and unusual: clinic duty. Only there was something new about it this time: the nurses were actually feigning a chance at him not escaping by keeping an eye on the door of Exam Room Three. So, after a period of forty-five minutes, he peeked out. Nobody stared back. So much for high security!

Hang on, there was, one reason why they weren't paying attention. All of the women in the clinic wearing that rose pink were crowding something around the door. The only thing that got the nurses interested was gossip, babies, and Chase. That could be it. Rising up to straighten out his dodgy leg, House grabbed his cane and limped out the door.

The closer he got, he could hear more cooing noises and awes of adorement. And the cause of the commotion; Chase. He had one of those "Get me out of here!" looks on his face and hands wrapped defensively around a white bundle. Maybe he does need bailing out.

"Aww, she's adorable!" a random nurse cried. House didn't know how she could tell; the baby was hidden pretty damn well. Chase nodded in forced agreement while trying to find a way out their circle of curiosity.

"Who's the momma?" another one of the random nurses piped up. House thought now might be a good time to intervene with something to piss the nurses off back to Pussy-land.

"You're drooling over him."

The nurses turned to him, some stared like he was crazy, others just gave a "whatever" look and went off to do something else. Nurses at PPTH: Like the nightmarish cheerleading, attention-grabbing girls all over again. Chase shuffled around on his feet again and breathed a word of "thank you".

"I thought they'd never go away." He mumbled, cocking his head to see if any were coming back for "doorknob questions".

Leaning hands on cane, subtle smile on his face and a wink in the eye, House said "Sorry, I only use the 'Be Nice to Chase' card once every ten years. Come to think of it, I diagnosed you, so, twenty years. Could I add a few more, for being there at…?"

"Go on. I could get used to that." Chase answered, turning his attention to this unusually quiet baby, which had just started to fuss about something. Curiosity grabbed House's train of thought, was there even a face on this little thing that they'd all been so aware of for the past nine months?

"Give me a look. I'd like to see this Joey we all slaved over."

Chase rolled his eyes and flipped the small girl over to show her face. It was still that bright red of a newly opened rose, she seemed to have inherited her father's mouth, which was stained with some unidentifiable food source. Surprisingly, her hair was her mum's, thin and mousy. She wasn't likely to have the same looks her father did. More of modesty about her, as she looked up to him with pale cyan eyes. She could be cute, but nothing amazing.

"Nice. Now, do I have to call it Josephine? Johanna? Jo?" House suspiciously asked, passing the baby back fairly carelessly. It wasn't his responsibility, why should he be the one having to hold it?

Chase chuckled, shaking his head. "No, whatever happened in-uteri, stays in-uteri. Her name's Violet."

Right then. Thank God that joke had been killed. "Not even as a middle name?"

"Not even as a middle name." he replied, smiling at the sleeping little baby now known as Violet.

House rolled his eyes in a way of showing "like I care". He then took a one-over of Chase now. That albino had done a good job of sewing him up, and he'd done a good job of thinning himself down again, just a bit, not like that girl who had Cushing's. Still…

"I still think you're fat."

"Oh, don't start that one up again! That pisses me off and you know it!" Chase said sarcastically, "Besides, I worked out that I only gained 20 pounds the other day…"

"Including the boulder?" House wondered casually, but he didn't really care. If it was out of the wombat's system, that was good. It would never be repeated again.

Chase nodded in a positive sort of way. "Another bonus to this whole thing is being barren down there for a couple of years. Now I could have sex with whomever the hell-"

"Oh, please, PLEASE! Do NOT get all Brokeback on me now!" House cried. The nurses stared at him, stupid nurses. Since when was this their business? Chase rolled his eyes in agreement, again. House still felt in the mood for aggravating his formerly future former employee.

"For a Catholic, you swear a hellofalot. I never knew that seminary drop-outs could learn more profanities than me."

"You who single-handedly re-invented the word 'fuck'?"

"See what I mean?" House knew he'd won this argument. If Chase backed down now, it'd be rather stupid. However, maybe he should let him have one last chance…

"I'd like to see you put up with pain so that you can't move for four hours on end!"

Heh, it was worth a try. "Go home, get some sleep, and teach her how to dig holes."

Chase nodded, giving one last sailor's salute as he walked out the door. Man, that guy was probably a whole lot stronger than he'd ever thought. Fire in the belly, or whatever they called it these days. Chase had it, and that kid was probably in good hands. Just as long as they didn't have to do any tedious differentials without the help of that Intensivist…House leant down to put his hand on the bung leg. Vicodin time, again.

At least Racknell didn't quit. He hated having to do interviews.

**The End**

A/N: Hoorah, finally got it done! Now, before you grab the torch and pitchforks, or maybe you could leave the chocolates-BANG!-Ow! Alright, who shot me? Oh, it's a blank bullet! Right! Hey, how about I tell you five little unknown facts about my writing of this?

Four months, four months of my precious time to keep you guys happy!

I became addicted to jelly beans (especially green apple ones) while writing this.

There was going to be a line, "Chase, there is no such thing as a fake orgasm. Along with werewolves, fairies, and Suri Cruise." My best satire joke ever thought up, and Godammit, Vanity Fair prints out pictures right as I was gonna put it in! So yeah, that was annoying.

I have a laptop now. Hoorah, again.

My muse came back, tanned and blonder from her holiday in Rio. Now I'm writing the crap out of my fingers to try and get her kick started.

Bye!

-Xandi


End file.
